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THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 



THE PENNY 
ANTE CLUB 

A Partial Record 

BY 

ARTHUR J. SHORES 



NEW YORK EDITORIAL SERVICE 

NEW YORK 

1916 



T^ 3"%^ 

\\'i''\\l'' 



Coi'VRir.HT, )i)16, 

NEW YORK EDITORIAL SERVICE 

New York 



JAN 10 I9!5 



(g)Cl.A42i)295 

nvOt \ X 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

MAN PROPOSES 1 

In which the plans for the Club are made. 

WOMAN DISPOSES 3 

In which these plans are ratified by the Court of Last 
Resort. 

THE FIRST MEETING 7 

In which we learn something of women. 

THE SECOND MEETING 12 

In which it is demonstrated that men are open and above 
board. 

THE THIRD MEETING 21 

In which we learn why we forget things and something of 
grammar. 

THE FOURTH MEETING 33 

In which we learn something 6f doctors. 

THE FIFTH MEETING . . . .' 47 

In which we learn something more about women. 

THE SIXTH MEETING 60 

In which we learn something of lawyers. 

THE SEVENTH MEETING 70 

In which we learn yet more of women. 

THE EIGHTH MEETING 80 

In which we hear some opinions on honesty. 



THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

MAN PROPOSES 

IN WHICH THE PLANS FOR THE CLUB ARE MADE 

THE club was determined upon by the four men 
in the library while the four wives gossiped in 
the music room. It was Brown who made the sugges- 
tion, and as it was made in Brown's library which 
was, for divers and sundry reasons, admirably 
adapted for the meetings of the proposed club. Jones, 
Smith and Robinson acquiesced without comment, 
quite as though the subject had long been under con- 
sideration and all reasons for and against such a revo- 
lutionary step fully canvassed. 

"I should say twice a week," said Jones, "Wednes- 
day and Saturday." 

"Game to open at eight-thirty and close at ten 
o'clock sharp," said Smith. 

"With five dollars to the Kitty from the first man 
to suggest another round of Jack-pots," said Robin- 
son. 

"Of course I will invite the Club to hold its meet- 
ings here," said Brown. 

This was so well understood that the remark passed 
without notice. Brown's library was well stocked 
with books and other things. The four pulled at their 
pipes in silence for a few moments. 

"Do you think they will row?" asked Smith. 

"Sure," said Jones. "It is their nature to." 

1 



2 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

"I shall promise to give my wife all my gains," 
said Robinson. 

"It is understood that we Avill hold onr first meet- 
ing next AVednesday evening," said Brown. 

A general movement was lieard from the direction 
of the music room. A moment later, they were joined 
by the four wives. 



WOMAN DISPOSES 

IN WHICH THESE PLANS ARE RATIFIED BY THE COURT OP 
LAST RESORT 

IT is intended, if practicable, to avoid introducing 
any additional characters. If this were a play, 
instead of a veracious chronicle, the Eight would be 
accounted for as follows: 

Persons of the Play 

Mr. Robert Brown: Lawyer — age fifty — somewhat 
corpulent of body — well-to-do but not offensively 
rich — given to selling short at the wrong time — 
law practice in the city below John Street — 
philosophically pessimistic. 

Mrs. Robert Brown: His wife. 

Mr. John Smith: Doctor — age sixty — Diagnostician 
— well-to-do — given to buying for a rise at the 
wrong time — philosophically optimistic. 

Mrs. John Smith: His wife. 

Mr. William Jones: Life insurance solicitor — age 
thirty-five. 

Mrs. William Jones: Age forty — well-to-do by in- 
heritance — interested in votes for women and 
with convictions. 

Mr. Jack Robinson: Age thirty — author of several 
books that have not sold and of two novels that 
have sold well. 

Mrs. Jack Robinson: His wife — a nice little woman, 
who has read her husband's novels. 

Mr. Robinson's remark upon the disposition he 
would make of his profits did not fall upon deaf ears 

3 



4 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

though it evoked no comment at the time. The day 
following the library conference, the four men went 
about their business in the city as usual. At about 
three o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Robinson stepped 
over to JMrs. Jones' house and discovered that Mr. 
Jones had, after some argument, persuaded Mrs. 
Jones to withdraw her anticipated objection to the 
club idea by promising her all of his winnings. Mrs. 
Robinson was able to say with some pride that her 
husband had made her the same generous offer. As 
both ladies were, by now, somewhat apprehensive that 
opposition might develop in the other households, they 
determined to call upon i\Irs. Smith and JMrs. Brown 
at once, after fortifying themselves with such argu- 
ments in favor of the club idea as came readily to 
mind. 

Mrs. Robinson was prepared to say that the nature 
of her husband's work kept him so isolated from other 
men during the day, that she had long been thinking 
of urging him to join some club of gentlemen whose 
conversation would take him out of himself and away 
from his work. Mrs. Jones was prepared to suggest 
that it Avould be a good thing to get rid of their hus- 
bands for two evenings a week, as it would afford an 
opportunity, if the others should approve, of form- 
ing themselves into a ladies' club for serious study 
of modern languages, or art, or the "movements" in 
which women were generally interested. 

]Mrs. Smith was found at home, and a few moments' 
conversation led the three to proceed to ]\Irs. Bro\\ai's. 
A few words with ]\Irs. Brown made it clear that each 
of the four men had resorted to corruption to obtain 
approval of the Penny Ante Club — and that each had 
promised to pay his w'innings over to his wife. 

This smacked of conspiracy. 

The four ladies looked the perplexity which they 



WOMAN DISPOSES 5 

felt. With true feminine intuition, the same diffi- 
culty was presented to the mind of each. Mrs. Rob- 
inson had secretly determined what she would buy 
with the money which her husband would win from 
Jones, Smith and Brown— Mrs. Jones had secretly, 
etc.— why continue? Each knew perfectly well the 
thought of the other, and each was determined that 
her husband should not contribute. Gambling, after 
all, is a vice, because sometimes the wrong people 

Uvs. Jones was the first to recover. Her confidence 
in her husband's ability to play poker saved the day. 

She said: "Girls, I will be perfectly candid with 
you. AVhen AVilliam made that proposition to me, 
I was in favor of letting them go on. It didn't occur 
to me that what I might get would or could amount 
to much, and I didn't think of the danger of William 
losing, instead of winning. Neither did it occur to 
me that he couldn't win without winning from your 
husbands. But I see all that now, and you are all 
thinking the same thing. 

"When this thought came into my mind a tew 
minutes ago, I was prepared to vote against this club 
idea, and tell William that I had changed my mmd 
and couldn't stand for it; but, I guess, upon second 
thought— or third thouglit— it may be just as well to 
let them go ahead with their foolishness if it pleases 
them. They want to play penny ante, and that's a 
little bit of a game. No one can win more than a dol- 
lar or two in one evening and I've heard that at the 
end of forty games of that kind, the thing has evened 
up so that nobody in the game has really made or 
lost anything. All these men will lose at that game 
will be the money they will give their wives. We'll 
get that out of them and they will never miss it, and 
it will make them feel generous and be a good thing 



6 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

all around. Besides, I think we can have some real 
fun with the money. 

"I suggest that we let thorn think we are running 
a Browning Club on the same evenings, but that we 
do, in fact, organize a girls' penny ante game, pull 
down the blinds and play with the capital which they 
so innocently contribute." 



THE FIRST MEETING 

IN WHICH WE LEARN SOMETHING OP WOMEN 

AT twenty minutes past eight Brown was ready 
for his guests — cards, chips, cigarettes, cigars 
and Tuxedo in a jar all in sight; and, just out of 
sight, in a case with folding doors that outwardly 
bore close resemblance to a bookcase containing De 
Luxe editions, were the other things essential to a 
pleasant evening at Poker, 

Now, Brown really liked a game of Poker; but, as- 
suming rightly or wrongly that his neighbors were 
not Poker players, and probably could not afford to 
lose enough to make the game interesting, he had 
proposed the Club as a mere pretext for getting two 
evenings a week with neighbors whom he felt were 
worth knowing Avell. But this was not all. Brown 
was a heavy stockholder in the realty company which 
owned the suburb. He had not thought it necessary 
to make this fact known to the public or to his neigh- 
bors. He had built the first residence and the most 
costly one upon the distinct understanding with his 
associates in the enterprise that his interest should 
be kept secret. The president of the company had 
urged that it would be better to advertise the fact 
that the owners had confidence in the enterprise. 
Brown said: 

"No, the Company may be presumed to have con- 
fidence in the enterprise. The outlay of several hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars is sufficient evidence of 

7 



8 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

that confidence. Now we want some evidence of the 
confidence of the pnblie in the enterprise. I will 
furnish twenty thousand dollars' worth of that evi- 
dence by building a house with my own money and 
upon plans provided by myself, conforming, of course, 
to the building restrictions of the Company, but not 
availing myself of the Company's offer to build for 
purchasers, and without mortgage on the place. I 
will pay for my lot, cash down, upon delivery of deed, 
and not on the installment plan. This will help you 
to sell lots as you will not keep my plan a secret." 

"That is very generous of you," said the President. 
"The Company would, I am sure, be glad to show 
you its appreciation in some way." 

"I shall not deprive the Company of that pleas- 
ure," said Brown. "Before I pay for the lots, the 
Company will execute a binding agreement under 
which I can 'put' the property to the Company at 
any time within five years at actual cost to myself 
with five per cent, per annum interest. That fact 
you need not advertise." 

"I was wondering," said the President. "How- 
ever, in order to start the ball rolling. I'm inclined to 
accept your offer, and will put a resolution through 
at the next board meeting which will confer sufficient 
authority to enter into such an agreement. Will you 
be good enough to suggest the proper phraseology? 
It ought not to be so plain as to advise a stockholder 
or the public of its purpose, and I think it is not 
strictly necessary that the Board itself should see its 
full effect if it can be made effective without doing 
so." 

Brown drew the resolution and it was passed at the 
first meeting of the board of directors of the Realty 
Company; all except the President and one member 
of the Board, whom the President thought it expedient 



THE FIRST MEETING 9 

to take into his confidence, supposing the resolution 
to relate to an entirely different subject. 

Smith, Jones and Robinson were the first builders 
to follow in the wake of Brown. And, in the order 
named, the good doctor had built with his own money 
a handsome and substantial residence, occupying two 
of the lots adjoining those occupied by Brown ; Jones 
(or Mrs. Jones) took the two lots next upon the other 
side of Brown and occupied a substantial dwelling 
upon plans furnished by the architect for the Com- 
pany and to be paid for in installments. Robinson's 
dAvelling was built for him by the Company and stood 
upon the two lots adjoining the Jones place. 



The clock struck ten — the game was closed. Jones 
was one dollar and thirty-five cents to the good, and 
Robinson was the happy temporary possessor of 
ninety-five cents, already no longer his, in truth, being 
really held in trust for his spouse. The evening was 
a success. The doors of the bookcase of the De Luxe 
editions were swung open by Brown, disclosing a com- 
partment within. Afterward the pipes were refilled 
and the four settled down to an hour of converse, 

"According to the program," said Jones, "the 
ladies should now be deep in a discussion of old Brown- 
ing, but unless my wife has been born anew since 
last night, they will get more of my Jap boy than 
Browning. There can be more things said about a 
Jap boy than anything else in this world and mostly 
uncomplimentary. ' ' 

"You're right about that," said Robinson, "but 
not about your Jap boy. Now I've got a Jap — but 
let it go at that — this is my evening off." 

"The women think of nothing and talk of nothing 
except the servant boy problem," added Jones. 



10 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

"Just what I say," continued Robinson. "Now 
my wife — " 

Jones: "Let four of them get together and it's a 
good bet they can't get off that subject even if — " 

Robinson : "Of course they can 't. They all talk 
at once and interrupt." 

Jones: "Of course they interrupt each other in 
the middle—" 

Robinson : ' ' Anywhere. You can 't get them off 
the subject, and as for getting them to take the 
slightest interest in — " 

Jones: "Exactly! They can't do it. The Lord 
made them that way. Now when men get together 
they usually find that they have some subject of im- 
portance worth exchanging views upon and something 
in the nature of real conversation upon matters of 
general interest may ordinarily be expected." 

Brown : ' ' For example ? ' ' 

Smith: "Wives." 

Jones: "Now, Doctor, you'll admit that women 
are different — " 

Smith: "Certainly." 

Jones: "And that their conversation is usually 
upon small subjects." 

Smith: "Usually as small as babies if they have 
'em." 

Jones: "Well, you know perfectly well what I 
mean, Doctor. AYomen as a class are not intellectual. 
Their talk is piffle. A dictagraph report of an hour's 
conversation by four women with no men present 
would demonstrate Avhat I mean." 

Smith: "Tlie same dictagraph reporting an hour's 
conversation of four men — say at a bar — or at a game 
of cards, or in the smoking compartment of a Pull- 
man would give us little cause for boasting. I think, 
Jones, you have made a valuable suggestion." 



THE FIRST MEETING 11 

Jones: "What was it?" 

Brown: "Certainly, Doctor, I agree with you. 
Gentlemen, I will attend to it. I'll have one planted 
in this room at our next meeting." 

Robinson : ' ' Do you mean that you will get a dicta- 
graph ? But what about the records 1 What will be- 
come of the records? I don't want to talk for pub- 
lication. I want these evenings off and to feel free 
to say what comes into my mind. If the women 
should get hold of the records — " 

Brown: "I'll see to that." 

Jones: "I'll not agree to it unless I'm protected. 
I'm always likely to say something about women in 
general that my wife might misunderstand. Women 
don't understand how we men feel about them. Now 
I've got one of the best wives in the world, but she 
takes offense easily and — " 

Brown: "It can be arranged for every one's pro- 
tection. The records can be kept in that small closet 
(indicating) and the door furnished with a lock that 
will respond only to four different keys — used in a 
fixed order. I know the locksmith who can furnish 
that kind of a lock. Each of us will carry one of the 
keys. At the end of six months the records will all 
be destroyed unless by unanimous consent some other 
disposition be made of them. Don't you think this 
might prove interesting. Doctor?" 

Smith : "It may prove very interesting. I 'm for 
the experiment and am willing to contribute to the 
expense." 

Brown : "If you will allow me, gentlemen, there 
will be no expense, I have a client engaged in the 
manufacture of the machines, who will be glad to 
make us a present of one. He understands the value 
of advertising." 



THE SECOND MEETING 

IN WHICH IT IS DEMONSTRATED THAT MEN ARE OPEN 
AND ABOVE BOARD 

BROWN: "Gentlemen, I have arranged for the 
dictagraph and will have it ready for our next 
meeting. Before starting the game, I am anxious to 
know whether you are still under obligation to give 
your winnings to your wives?" 

Jones: "iNIy wife, as usual, has gone back on the 
arrangement. She wasn't satisfied with a dollar and 
thirty-five cents. I think she suspects that I held out 
on her. She always suspects that I make more money 
in my business than I do. If I tell her that business 
is poor she doesn't believe it or acts as if she didn't. 
That's the trouble with women — they make liars of 
their husbands. It's not worth while telling wives 
the truth. Any woman, except my wife, will believe 
anything I tell her. I've tried it just to see. Even 
my wife is more likely to believe me when I'm lying 
than when I'm telling her the truth. When I'm 
telling her the actual truth — oh, you needn't laugh, 
I sometimes do — she says there's something peculiar 
about my manner, or that I am not talking naturally 
and that I can't blame her if she doesn't swallow it. 
She doesn't say 'swallow it,' but that's what she 
means. That's another thing about women. They 
don't say what they mean — (Pause) — sometimes — 
(Laughter) there you go again! Every one of you 
knows that what I've said is true but you don't think 
it's prudent or dignified to express yourselves." 

12 



THE SECOND MEETING 13 

Brown: "You haven't told us of your new com- 
pact with your wife." 

Jones: "I've got to give her at least two dollars 
each meeting whether I make it or not. What do 
you think of that for a woman's sense of commercial 
honesty? I tell you, they haven't got any. At least 
my wife hasn't any, and she's as good a woman as I 
know. (All are smiling.) Well, what happened to 
the rest of you ? ' ' 

Brown: "I've made the same terms with Mrs. 
Brown." 

Smith: "And I with Mrs. Smith." 

Robinson: "And I with Mrs. Robinson." 

Jones: "What did I tell you? Women are all 
alike. How do you suppose they all happened to 
make it just two dollars?" 

Brown: "I suspect that they conferred together 
and compared notes." 

Jones: "Of course — it's a regular conspiracy. 
And that's just like women, too. They are not open 
and above board like men. I'm not finding fault or 
criticizing them. They can't help it. It's their na- 
ture. God made them that way. Look at Adam and 
Eve. You know what I mean. Don't you find them 
that way in your business, Mr. Brown?" 

Brown: "I don't find them in my business at all 
as clients. My employment is by corporations; or 
more strictly speaking, by the managers of corpora- 
tions. I regret to say that many of my clients are 
suspected of conspiracies, and some are being prose- 
cuted upon charges of not having been entirely 'open 
and above board' in their conduct of business. Of 
course, I don't admit that any of them are guiltj^ 
but sometimes it is stockholders and sometimes it is 
the Government making charges against them. I 
don't remember just now that any women are in- 



14 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

volved in such charges. I 'm not prepared to say that 
women are especially addicted to conspiring or con- 
spiracy. ' ' 

Jones: "Now, Mr. Brown, you know you are twist- 
ing what I said; I wasn't talking of business con- 
spiracies but of conspiracies against men in general." 

Brown: "If you mean that women are more likely 
to conspire against men as a class than men to con- 
spire against men as a class, I'm not prepared to dis- 
sent at present. I'll have to consider that point be- 
fore offering an opinion." 

Robinson: "1 agree with Jones." 

Brown : ' ' Jones, you ought to meet a friend of 
mine. AVe'll call him, Cowper. lie is a lawyer and 
a very good one; also a husband and a very good 
one. One fine morning several years ago, we were 
walking to business and discussing a divorce suit which 
was occupying several columns of the morning papers 
every day. Cowper was convinced that the whole 
fault lay with the wife. It didn't look that way to 
me and I said so. Cowper closed the discussion by 
saying: 'Well, of course, one can't tell from news- 
paper reports of the trial, but I'm convinced of one 
thing, that women are the most dangerous class of 
people in the world.' He was very serious and his 
air was humorously tragic. Naturally, I suspected 
that Mrs. Cowper had indulged her temper at his ex- 
pense that morning. The lady was reputed to be 
somewhat expert at starting Cowper to his business 
in a depressed state of mind." 

Jones: "Well, my wife and I never quarrel — 
well, 'hardly ever' as somebody says; — but you know 
what I mean. I'm not speaking from personal ex- 
perience at all, though I guess we all have had some 
personal experience ; but I can 't help observing 
things, and I think I know something about women." 



THE SECOND MEETING 15 

Brown : ' ' Lucky man ! And speaking of lucky 
men, who are going to be the lucky men to-night? 
It's nine o'clock and the game will have to be a short 
one." 

Smith : ' ' Don 't let me forget to ask you, Brown, 
what you meant when you said that your chief em- 
ployment comes from corporations, or more strictly 
speaking, from the managers of corporations. I 
don't get your point. I suppose you meant some- 
thing by that qualification. You needn't explain 
now. Any time will do. We'd better proceed with 
the game. The ladies will all be disgusted with us. 
As Jones says, they won't believe it possible for a 
game to be played without somebody making some- 
thing out of it. They might compare notes, you 
know. ' ' 



Promptly at ten o'clock the game was closed. Jones 
had won two dollars and forty cents. Robinson, five 
cents. Brown and the Doctor were both losers. 

Jones (With a sigh) : Just my luck! If this had 
happened last time, I wouldn't have had to agree to 
pay over two dollars regardless." 

Robinson: "How do you know that? Are you 
sure that you were the first to agree to pay the two 
dollars ? ' ' 

Jones: "Of course I am. My wife raised the 
question at once when I paid over the dollar and thir- 
ty-five cents. She stuck out for quite a while for two- 
fifty. I compromised on two dollars." 

Smith : ' ' Does that quite fit in with the charge of 
conspiracy ? ' ' 

Jones: "Oh, it was a conspiracy all right. They 
had probably hatched it up while we were playing that 
first game. Women are not great logicians, but they 



16 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

are not quite fools. They've got intuition, you know, 
and their intuition would tell them that we couldn't 
all win every time and that they wouldn 't all get some- 
thing every week unless they made a new bargain. 
They fixed a limit. They've heard that word 'limit' 
used in talk about Poker games, and that's their idea 
about what fixing a limit means. 1 think it's the 
limit myself, ^ly wife has probably heard me speak 
of a 'raise' or raising the limit, and it was her idea 
to raise the limit to two dollars and a half, but I 
woukln't stand for it. Of course, she doesn't know 
anything about the game of Poker. Neither do I, for 
that matter (Smiles from the others) ; but she's got 
nerve enough and can get away with a bluff as well 
as any Poker player I ever knew. I'll bet, if the 
truth were known, that they had agreed upon one 
dollar and my wife just couldn't help beating the rest 
of them to an extra dollar or two if she could work 
me." 

Robinson: "I think you are wrong about that, 
Jones. I didn't tell you the whole truth about my 
new arrangement. I've agreed to give my wife two 
dollars and a half an evening. She looked so disap- 
pointed when I passed over the sixty-five cents, that 
I made the offer myself. But since the rest of you 
are onlv paving tAvo dollars, I shall ask her to let me 
off for that.'" 

Brown : ' ' Only the men are open and above board. ' ' 

Jones: "Now, gentlemen, what do you think of 
Robinson? I think he's a confessed traitor to our 
sex. Do you think he'll get off with two dollars? 
Not on your life, gentlemen ! We '11 all be raised to 
two dollars and a half before the end of another 
week. ' ' 

Robinson: "I don't think so. I asked her not to 
tell." 



THE SECOND MEETING 17 

Jones : "He asked her not to tell ! Ye Gods and 
merry mortals, catch the naivete of that? Neighbor 
Robinson is a thoroughly good citizen, I have no doubt. 
He is certainly a good neighbor and he has shown rea- 
sonable skill at Poker. But he asked her not to tell! 
No reflections on IMrs. Robinson, of course, but she 
didn't promise you not to tell, I'll venture? (Look- 
ing into Robinson's face.) I can see that she didn't. 
It's common and universal knowledge that women 
can't keep secrets — at least such a secret as that. 
And you didn 't even exact a promise ! ' ' 

Smith: "Just a moment, Jones. I think you are 
rather severe on Neighbor Robinson, who, I see, is 
taking this quite good-naturedly. I rather suspect 
that he is amused at the thought that he may have, 
inadvertently I'm sure, laid the foundation for a de- 
mand of the Union for two-fifty from each of us. For 
my own part, I should think it complimentary to us, 
if that should result. I should hate to believe that 
my wife felt that she was being fully compensated 
for my absence by a payment of two dollars and a 
half. Indeed, I'm afraid that I did a somewhat fool- 
ish thing myself when I told her that I would make 
it three dollars per meeting, when I w'cnt home with- 
out gains, and had to admit an actual loss. It didn't 
occur to me that my action might possibly affect the 
rest of you. I didn't even ask her not to tell." 

Brown: "Doctor! Doctor! And at your age, 
too! Well, except for the positively expressed opin- 
ion of ]\Ir. Jones, I suppose at this point I should be- 
gin to doubt whether men are, in fact, open and above 
board. (All laugh heartily except Jones.) 

Jones (After a pause and with an air of resigna- 
tion) : Well, I suppose there is no help for it, and 
your motives were good and all that; but you can 
take it from me, that we are all in for a raise to three 



18 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

dollars. (A pause.) But have we heard it all, or is 
the worst to come? What was your real promise, 
Mr. Brown?" 

Brown: "Two dollars, Neighbor, no more and no 
less." 

Jones: "Well, you and I are the victims of the 
indiscretions of our friends." 

Brown: "Now, my dear ]Mr. Jones, will you allow 
me to ask j'ou one or two questions?" 

Jones: "Certainly." 

Brown: "When you agreed to pay the two dol- 
lars, did you know- that any one of the rest o£ us had 
agreed to a raise?" 

Jones: "No." 

Brown: "Did you, at that time, suspect any con- 
spiracy upon the part of our wives to demand an in- 
crease ? ' ' 

Jones: "Well, no — I can't exactly say that I sus- 
pected it at that time." 

Brown: "Well, then I demand in the behalf of 
myself and the unfortunate Mr. Robinson and the 
indiscreet Doctor tliat you justify yourself to us and 
to your own conscience for weakly consenting to such 
extortion on the part of a woman whom you hold in 
the bonds of matrimony under most solemn vows to 
subordinate herself to you, when with 3'our self-con- 
fessed intimate knowledge of the nature of woman 
and her ways, you must have known that the rest of 
us would be compelled to meet your ante, whether we 
wished to do so or not?" 

Jones: "Well, I guess I didn't figure it. (To 
Robinson.) I'll withdraw tlie expression 'traitor to 
our sex,' but I'm right about what's going to happen 
to us. I'll warn you all now' that I'm going to play 
the game of Poker from this on. It's been the way 
of women from the beginning of the world to pit men 



THE SECOND MEETING 19 

against each other in a sordid strife for gain. Doctor, 
that's pretty nearly good enough for a dictagraph 
record — what ? ' ' 

Brown (Meaningly) : "Well, we've got it in a 
dictagraph record." 

Smith, Robinson and Jones (but loudest of all, 
Jones): "What!" 

Brown: "I told you that I would have the dicta- 
graph in operation for our next meeting. That was 
the truth, but not the whole truth. You can now 
hear the record of this evening if you desire. Of 
course we must agree with i\Ir. Jones that men are 
open and above board, but as much cannot be asserted 
of the dictagraph." 

Jones: "Robinson isn't in the 'traitor to sex' 
class. I want to hear this record — but, Mr. Brown, 
unless you have got the new lock on that closet and 
the four keys and I get mine, and am satisfied by 
actual demonstration that the record can't be taken 
out of there without my consent, I shall feel com- 
pelled to insist that this particular record must be 
smashed before we leave this evening. It's too dan- 
gerous a thing to leave lying around. I don't re- 
member all that I've said, and of course I was jok- 
ing for the most part, and just talking to see Avhat 
the rest of you would say and — " 

Brown: "You needn't go further, Jones. The 
dictagraph is not taking you down now, so you 
needn't stultify j^ourself further. Of course this rec- 
ord must not be preserved against the objection of 
any one of you. I hope that you may have as free 
an interchange of views when you know that you are 
being reported." 

Jones : "I 'm afraid I '11 shut up like a clam unless 
I can forget the machine. I think I'll feel, every 
time I open my mouth, as if I were on a platform 



20 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

and ought to say, 'Mr. Chairman' or 'Gentlemen.' 
Should think you might feel like saying, '^lay it 
please the Court, ' Brown ; and Robinson like chirp- 
ing, 'To my Gentle Reader.' The Doctor won't feel 
embarrassed at all. His profession is one which pre- 
pares a man for all situations. He wouldn't feel em- 
barrassed even if the room were full of ladies. Doc- 
tors say what they please upon the most delicate sub- 
jects, without embarrassment. They are in the con- 
fidence of everybody and have plenty of confidence — 
confidence men — you know. (Laughs.) No of- 
fense. Doctor. Just a general observation. Good 
thing that the thing can't record our thoughts as well 
as our words, though by your smiling, as old Hamlet 
says, you would seem to say that in this case you 
wouldn't get much more out of me. (Laughs.) How 
is that for a literary allusion, Robinson?" 

Robinson: "Very apt. Especially as you and 
Hamlet seem to be in accord as to the women." 

Jones: "How is that?" 

Robinson: " ']\Ian delights me not — nor women 
either,' and so forth." 

Jones: "Oh, yes, I remember, though I didn't 
have that in mind. I only know fragments of Ham- 
let. Read him in school, you know." 

Brown: "Will you hear the record now?" 

(All assent and the record is put through the phono- 
graph to the anuisement of all except Jones, who lis- 
tens with intense interest and a good deal of uneasi- 
ness w^hile the others watch him.) 

Jones: "Well, I can say one thing for the dicky 
bird — it's no liar, and that record is nine-tenths 
Jones ; but ' never again ' ! " 



THE THIRD MEETING 

IN WHICH WE LEARN WHY WE FORGET THINGS AND 
SOMETHING OF GRAMMAR 

BROWN: "Well met, gentlemen. I think we 
had better start the game at once or a discussion 
may be started that will cheat us of our game alto- 
gether. I feel like taking home a little easy money 
myself to-night. I\Iy reputation as a man of busi- 
ness is suffering in my own domestic circle — and I 
might lose it anywhere else with more peace of mind. ' ' 

Jones: "Is that machine going? If it is, won't 
you please turn it off a minute ? I heard a good one 
to-day but I don't think it needs to go on that rec- 
ord. (All laugh.) Well, it's not exactly rotten, you 
know, but just so-so." 

Smith: "Turn off the machine, Brown. If Jones 
doesn 't get it off his mind he will be at an unfair dis- 
advantage during the game. Besides, I 'd like to hear 
*a good one' to-night. Am just in the mood." 

(When conversation was resumed, the game was 
over. Jones was three dollars and twenty cents ahead 
of the game and the rest were losers. ) 

Brown: "Jones, have you any new opinions to 
offer touching the mental status of woman ? ' ' 

Jones: "Not on your life! Not while that ma- 
chine goes. The truth is, gentlemen, I 've been think- 
ing things over and I've made up my mind that I 
talk too much." 

Brown: "But consider, Jones — you have so much 
21 



22 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

to say. I envy you your ability to form such positive 
opinions — convictions upon subjects that I find so 
difficult." 

Jones: "But do you really have convictions upon 
any subject? I've known a number of lawyers in 
my time, and the only ones I've known who were any 
good as law^-ers didn't seem to have any positive opin- 
ions upon any subject. They've generally looked at 
both sides of a proposition until they got tired of 
considering it and then changed the subject. Guess 
it's a business habit and it may be all right in your 
line of business, but it would queer me in mine. Be- 
sides, I'd rather have opinions than doubts. When 
I'm in doubt about anything, I'm uneasy and I can't 
sleep. After I got into bed last night, I couldn't 
remember whether I'd brought my shoes into the bed- 
room or left them in the library where I had changed 
into slippers, and I couldn't go to sleep until I had 
got up and turned on the light and found them in 
the usual place in the bedroom. 

"]\Iy wife's just the same. Doctor, Avhat's your 
idea as to why a man will do a fool thing like that? 
Forget, I mean, what he did only a few minutes be- 
fore, when he must have known, at the time, what 
he was doing? I couldn't take off my shoes witliout 
knowing it, nor have put them down where I did 
without knowing it." 

Brown : ' ' Before starting the Doctor off into a 
long psychological discussion involving mental dis- 
sociation, main streams of consciousness, complexes, 
split personalities and other mind patter, suppose you 
give us your opinion, because you must have one." 

Jones: "Of course I have one. I suppose I for- 
got it because I was thinking of something else at 
the time I took off my shoes. Of course I must have 
thought about taking off my shoes too, but that re- 



THE THIRD MEETING 23 

quired mighty little thinking and so little attention 
that it left mighty little impression on my mind, and 
naturally, it's like hunting for a needle in a haystack 
to recall it. Of course it wasn't of any real impor- 
tance to me whether I remembered a little thing like 
that or not, so long as I took them off in my own 
house, and I knew at the time that it wasn't impor- 
tant. Such things are not done to be remembered. 
You've had three meals to-day and raised a fork or 
spoon — I won't say knife (Laughs) to your mouth 
probably three hundred times. You can't actually re- 
member doing it once; or, at least, can't remember 
any particular time that you did it. What good 
would it do you to be able to remember a thing like 
that ? No good at all ; that 's why you don 't remem- 
ber it. It's just natural to forget it. That's my ex- 
planation. It's just natural to forget such things 
because it wouldn't do a cussed bit of good to remem- 
ber them, and so we're made so as not to remember. 
Simple enough, isn't it? I asked the Doctor just for 
fun. Wanted to see what he'd say. I thought he'd 
get off some scientific dope, but not so bad as that 
patter you've fed up on somewhere. Where did you 
get that line, anyhow?" 

Smith : ' ' Brown thinks he 's joking. He thinks 
he's poking fun at you and that you don't know it, 
so he wants to try it on me and see what he can get 
over in that direction. My impression is that he's 
fooling himself, but we don 't care. Now, I '11 venture 
to say that Lawyer Brown couldn't give a better an- 
swer than you 've given when you say that it 's natural 
to forget at once such acts as it can be of no impor- 
tance to us to remember. You've explained why you 
forgot where you had placed your shoes. Forgetful- 
ness of such matters is just as natural as sleep. There 
is nothing abnormal about it. Of course you haven't 



24 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

explained the 'mechanism of forget fulness,' to use 
the patter of the psychologist, but I don't believe 
that Brown can do that or that he can give an intelli- 
gent account of such explanations as are offered by 
expert psychologists, though it is evident that he has 
been reading up to impress us. ' ' 

Brown: "I cry you mercy, gentlemen. I plead 
guilty to every count in the indictment except the 
charge that I was fooling such a wide-awake gentle- 
man. I accept the answer of ]\lr. tjones to his own 
question as being adequate to all practical intents. 
But may I suggest, in the interest of teclmical ac- 
curacy, one sliglit qualification? Instead of saying 
that prompt forgetfulness of unimportant matters is 
the natural or normal course, may we not more prop- 
erly say that it is natural for us f|uickly to forget 
matters of a kind that we ordinarily think it unim- 
portant to remember?" 

Jones: "I accept that amendment. Now my wife 
remembers more fool, petty, unimportant things that 
happen during the day about the house! It's her 
habit, and mighty annoying sometimes. Of course 
to her such things seem important and that's why 
she remembers them. The difference between her and 
me is that we don't agree upon what is important, 
so we don't remember the same things. I say a lot 
of things, as a man will in talking away to his wife, 
without paying much attention to what I'm saying. 
Days afterward she'll tell me I've said something or 
made some little promise that I've forgotten all about, 
not considering it of any importance when said ; and 
then, when I deny saying it or insist that I don't re- 
member saying it — which is perfectly true — she 
thinks I'm lying about it. But it wouldn't be any 
use trying to explain it to her as you could to a man. 
You might as well talk Latin to a hog as psychology 



THE THIRD MEETING 25 

to a woman. I don't mean to make any comparison 
between a woman and a hog. (Ha! Ha!) They're 
different. But woman is different from man, too. 
What are you laughing at?" 

Brown: "You, of course, and your prompt accept- 
ance of our acceptance of your psychological views; 
as Veil as your ready use in a practical way of your 
psychology to explain trifling domestic episodes. 
Our professional psychologist doesn't help us much 
in the art of living pleasantly; while an amateur — 
I suppose you will concede the amateur? — can find a 
justification for forgetting little promises to his wife 
that must help him to bear with her when she calls 
him to account. You know that it is the different 
point of view that leads to such little differences be- 
tween man and wife, rather than innate perversity 
in either, and you will forgive the woman much as 
you would a child — which is at least philosophical, if 
not magnanimous." 

Jones: "Oh, keep it np if it amuses you. Your 
great age gives you the privilege. But even an old 
boy like you gets called down by the missus for little 
things. ' ' 

Brown: "Certainly. At least in my own case I 
find that my wife remembers many things that she 
thinks I ought to remember but which I do not. For 
my part, I'd be quite as well satisfied if I could for- 
get a good deal I do remember." 

Jones: "AVell, that's reasonable. Think of the 
business you're in! (Laughs.) But you've changed 
the subject. You want to forget the things that 
you thought important when they happened. It 
isn't natural to do that and so it's a mighty hard 
thing to do. There's one thing I've often thought 
of—" 

Brown: "Now, Jones, be careful! Have you 



26 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

really often thought of what you are about to say, 
or has it just occurred to you?" 

Jones: "Well, I think I've often thought of it, 
but at any rate, I'm thinking of it now — let's see — 
what was it I had in mind? Oh, yes, I was about to 
say that it's a lucky thing for us that we don't re- 
member our dreams. ]\Iost of them are unpleasant 
and none of them true, so it wouldn't do us any good 
to remember them. You forget all of them except the 
very bad ones that sometimes wake you up ; and you '11 
forget them too in a very short time if you're not such 
a fool as to think them all out just as soon as you 
Avake. Then I guess the thing you really remember 
is what you thought out and that's naturally a long 
ways off from the real dream. I've tried to remem- 
ber real dreams and tell them afterward, but I always 
lie more or less in telling tiiem and I guess everybody 
does that. You've got to fill out a good deal in think- 
ing out a dream, and you are pretty sure to fill out 
a little more in telling it, just to make it good. When 
anybody begins to tell me a strange dream, I begin 
to think of something else because I know the dream 
w^asn't dreamed as told. Grown-ups are nearly as 
bad as children in telling their dreams, and take it 
from me, if you encourage a small child in telling 
its dreams, you'll make a liar of it or a (To Robinson) 
novelist. (Laughs heartily.) I know that's so be- 
cause I often get my little nephew, seven years old, 
started just to hear him lie. Of course it's perfectly 
natural for him to lie in telling a dream, but not much 
more so than for a grown-up to do it. I know a man 
who's always telling wonderful dreams he's had. I 
really don't know anything else against him, but if 
I were on a jury and he were called as a witness, I 
wouldn't believe a word of his testimony, because I 
know he enjoys lying, and that's enough for me. Of 



THE THIRD MEETING 27 

course there are times when a man's got to lie, but 
that's different. I guess I ought to pay for all the 
records we're making. Suppose you talk a while, 
Doctor, and let's get some real grammar down. I 
went through grammar school and I studied grammar 
too, but I don't seem to remember any of it." 

Smith: "You know why, of course?" 

Jones: "Certainly. Because I didn't consider it 
important at the time." (Laughs.) 

Smith : ' ' What 's your opinion of grammar, Rob- 
inson? You are a writer and I think it would be 
difficult for any sensible grammarian to find much to 
criticize in 'The i\Ian of a Hundred Passions.' But 
you're not writing a book now and may use your un- 
dress English. Just forget your reputation. If you 
make yourself as intelligible as Jones you'll satisfy 
your audience. Book style is not demanded at ses- 
sions of a penny ante club. 

Robinson: "There are several kinds of English, 
and colloquial English is good enough for a Poker 
party. Colloquial English is the raw material from 
which what we call good English is ultimately made. 
I think a writer should use good English when express- 
ing his own views, and permit his characters to use 
the language which it would be reasonable to expect 
from them as real persons in the circumstances under 
which they speak. What we call grammatical Eng- 
lish, or good English, has been created by our authors 
who had leisure to select their words and phrases. 
There is hardly such a thing yet as good conversa- 
tional English, outside of books, and we can only 
expect it from scholarly people engaged in serious 
conversation where there is no call for that readiness 
wdiich is necessary to amusing or lively talk. But I 
don't consider really good English at all essential 
to the expression of such thoughts as we usually 



28 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

indulge in at democratic social gatherings, such as 
Poker clubs. 

"Jones confesses to a lack of knowledge of the 
rules of grammar. His confessed ignorance gives him, 
at once, a great advantage over me. I profess to 
know good English when I hear it and to be able to 
write it. What is the consequence? I've wanted to 
speak many times this evening, but, because I'm ex- 
pected to speak in a particular style and I naturally 
do not like to expose myself to criticism, the oppor- 
tunity passes before I'm able to select my words. So 
long as a man is at all careful not to say Avhat he 
does not mean to say, he might as well 'pass' the con- 
versation when a man like Jones is present. Jones 
always chips in whether he has a hand or not. He 
treats the game of conversation as if it were a penny 
ante game. His ante isn't valuable, but if he keeps 
playing, he may win a pot. Or if he keeps talking, 
he may say something worth while. When he does 
say a brilliant thing we're all. including Jones him- 
self, a little bit surprised. He starts to talk with 
nothing but a pair of deuces in his mind but he draws 
on his imagination and gets a full house. And in 
our admiration at his luck in the draw, we overlook 
the fact that he came in on a pair of deuces and ought 
to have stayed out altogether. A man who hasn't 
courage to get into a conversation until he is sure that 
he has something worth saying and can properly ex- 
press it, is much like a Poker player who will never 
chip in unless he had a good hand before the draw — 
he's out of the game most of the time. Bacon says 
that speaking makes a ready man. He might also 
have said that it's the ready man who makes the 
speech." 

Brown: "Are we to understand, then, that you 
consider the man best equipped for Poker club con- 



THE THIRD MEETING 29 

versation who is indifferent to forms of speech, ig- 
norant of the rules of grammar and wholly unem- 
barrassed by his ignorance?" 

Robinson : ' ' AVell, I think he will command at- 
tention and get a hearing without much regard to 
whether he has anything worth saying." 

Brown : ' ' Why, then, would you advise a young 
man to study his English and acquire skill in using 
it properly — as I assume you would — if the effect of 
such a course is to largely deprive him of opportunity 
to be heard?" 

Robinson: *'I was speaking of Poker club con- 
versation as we have been pleased to term it — and 
the same observations will apply to merely social 
conversations generally. But don't understand that 
I think the unembarrassed ungrammatical speaker is 
really profited by his performance — nor to be con- 
gratulated upon his ability to monopolize talk. I 
only mean to say that he will succeed in doing that. 
His success in doing so is attended with some decided 
disadvantages. He will often incur the dislike of 
others who are crowded out. He is certain to be 
criticized and perhaps ridiculed by persons who at- 
tach consequence to forms of speech. And, what is 
I think much more important, the effect upon the 
speaker himself is decidedly evil. Ilis speech be- 
comes flippant and his utterances trivial. He ac- 
quires a mental habit of thinking as he speaks. His 
thoughts are incomplete and usually of little worth 
because not considered by himself of more real worth 
than the language employed to express them. It is 
quite generally conceded that thought is vague and 
undefined until it has been expressed in words. Ac- 
curacy of expression is essential to accuracy of 
thought; and if a man would cultivate good habits 
of thinking, he must acquire the power of accurate 



30 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

expression, and that means, practically, that he must 
acquire a command of good English." 

Jones: "IMore psychology'. You'll admit, I sup- 
pose, Robinson, that I've put the right tag on that 
last idea of yours. I can't think the things that 
Henry James would think because I don't fall for 
his style of English. I've got to adopt his style of 
expression or I'm to be shut out of his think arena. 
All that I've got to do to be a great thinker is to get 
old Daniel Webster down and cop the words and learn 
to arrange them according to the rules laid down by 
Lindley IMurray and I've taken the trick? That 
seems to be the idea of most of you authors; but I 
can tell you that the readers don't think so. You 
might as well tell me that a bad idea can't be put 
into good English as to tell me that a sound and sen- 
sible idea can't be conveyed in speech that would 
make a Wellesley graduate cry, 'Shocking!' Under- 
stand, I don't claim that a man is necessarily a fool 
because he won't utter a thought until he has parsed 
the words and phrases of the sentence he will use in 
expressing it, but he'd have a fine time selling life 
insurance, and its selling insurance that counts if 
you're in that business. If you want to sell stock 
you must do it before the Exchange closes. Do you 
get the idea? Of course if my thought or speech is 
obscure, you won't get it. 

"Once upon a time when I was younger and 
foolisher, I thought I'd improve my mind. I got 
Herbert Spencer's psychology from the library and 
tried to read it. I found that it was not written in 
good English, or in English at all. He put in, it 
seems to me, most of his time inventing new words — ' 
and rotten ones, too — to fit ideas he couldn't express 
in the language of the people. And as I couldn't 
get the idea back of his terminology (how's that, 



THE THIRD MEETING 31 

Bobby?) without his definition, and as a definition 
was necessary only because English wouldn't express 
the idea, you can imagine about how long it would 
have taken me or any man named Jones to get the 
old boy's point of view. I was young then and 
dreamed of becoming a learned man; but after a 
really serious effort at reading that work, I con- 
cluded that the commercial life would just about suit 
Jones, and that selling insurance would teach me all 
the psychology I'd care for. And you can take it 
from me, I can sell more insurance in a month than 
old Herbert could have sold in a lifetime. But of 
course the business doesn't demand any understand- 
ing of the workings of the human mind! I don't 
think! I may not be able to put my psychological 
views into good English or into Herbert Spencer dia- 
lect, but I put them into my business, and that's not 
trifling with them either — with the long 'i.' I might 
not be able to give them 'accurate expression,' as 
Robinson would say, in words, but they are suffi- 
ciently definite in my mind to work out my financial 
salvation. I don't think Herbert ever really made 
any money on his. Now, Bobby, permit me to make 
a few sapient apropos remarks upon your book, 'The 
Man of a Hundred Passions.' I found it readable, 
and, once in a while, I found something that tickled 
my fancy, and I'll take the Doc's word for it that it 
IS really the best ever. No doubt it's written in first- 
class English. Of course you couldn't do anything 
else. Now, you wrote that book to sell to the Joneses 
of the world and there's lots of them masquerading 
under the names of Smith, Robinson and Brown. 
And you have succeeded in selling about a quarter 
of a million of them to the aforesaid Joneses. 

"I hate to do it, Bobby, but I've just got to hand 
it to you. There are dozens and dozens of sentences 



32 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

in that book Avhich uo genuine Jones ever got the 
meaning of. I've puzzled over some of them that 
read so smoothly that I felt sure at first they must 
mean something. Yet 1 had to give it up. I can't 
give you credit for being able to give your views 'ac- 
curate expression' in good English and believe that 
in those sentences you had any clear meaning to ex- 
press. I've just got to believe in your English, you 
know, so I'm forced to believe that I didn't get the 
meaning because it wasn't there. Now I'll bet a 
penny, or even go you a ducat, that if I knew what 
you were trying to say, I'd be able to say it to you 
so that you would understand me, and do it in Eng- 
lish, or American, or even in New York language. 
Guess I'd undertake it in pigeon English if you insist 
upon having an even chance for your money. If you 
dare me to do it, I'll go through that book and cull 
a few sentences for a test." 

Smith: "Thank you both, gentlemen, for your 
very frank expression of views upon the question pro- 
pounded. We are a little bej'ond our closing hour 
and I must say good night to you. I can see that 
penny ante club conversation has possibilities that I 
didn't dream of when we organized." 

Brown : "I think. Doctor, the Bantam 's put up a 
pretty good fight." 

Jones: "Brown, if I should go home and tell my 
wife that the last thing you said was a joke about a 
couple of chickens, she'd say you were no fit company 
for a boy like me. She might even warn your wife 
to keep an eye on you." 



THE FOURTH MEETING 

IN WHICH WE LEARN SOMETHING OF DOCTORS 

JONES: "This evening, gentlemen, I will not be 
drawn into an argument. I've said that before, 
and I 'm going to keep on saying it until it comes true 
even if it's the last thing I shall ever say. I would 
like to suggest, however, that (Turning to the Doctor 
and Robinson) we draw out Brother Brown. He 
must be full of wisdom because he hasn't let much 
escape him so far, and he must have learned some- 
thing before he met us." 

Smith: "1 think, Brown, that Jones with his 
usual luck has made a good suggestion," 

Jones: "I'll tell you why I'd like to hear a real 
lawyer talk for a while. I took lunch to-day at 
White's Avith a couple of young fellows who have 
been admitted to the bar for about a year. Each of 
them has a case, a little one no doubt, and the way 
they let everybody in the neighborhood onto the fact 
was a lesson in advertising even to an insurance man. 
But they carried it too far, because it was made quite 
clear that they were in the penny ante class. They 
swelled themselves something worse than the frog old 
^sop tells about who broke himself all up trying to 
look like a bull. (Laughs.) You see, Robby, I'm 
up on the classics. Well, these fellows got to talking 
about pleadings — complaints and answers — of course 
the complaints were theirs. Young fellow^s are al- 
ways for the plaintiff, I guess. I'll bet BrowTi here 

33 



34 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

is for the defendant nine times out of ten and that 
his clients need some real defending, too. It seems 
that each of them had discovered in the answer put 
in to his complaint something called 'a negative preg- 
nant.' There were at least two dozen young women 
in the restaurant, and j'ou can bet that I was some 
startled when one of the fellows, speaking pretty 
loud, says: 'Now what do you think of that for a 
denial? Isn't she a peach? Look at that negative 
pregnant!' Every one looked around for the peach. 
The girls nearby looked over at us. There was some 
stir around us and the boys knew that something had 
happened. Other people nearby stopped talking. 
Everybody looking around for the negative pregnant, 
I guess. The fool boys felt that they had an audience, 
attracted no doubt by their learned talk, so they let 
themselves out strong. 

" 'Look at that allegation! — The defendant struck 
and kicked the plaintiff; and then at that denial — 
Defendant denies that he struck and kicked the plain- 
tiff — see the negative pregnant?' By this time every 
one was on to them and the girls looked safe once 
more and some of them were talking and pretending 
to find something funny in their own talk. 'You see,' 
Adams said — I didn't mean to give his name — 'You 
see that only denies that he kicked him. It doesn't 
deny that he struck him and a blow is as good for 
my case as a kick.' Somebody laughed right out 
loud. It was kind of quiet when that laugh came 
and it sounded like a bellow. The boys were getting 
rattled. 'No,' the other fellow said, 'it doesn't do 
that — it just denies that he struck him and doesn't 
deny that he kicked him. Can you show a kick?' 
Here the old fellow that had laughed before bellowed 
again and nearly choked himself doing it. 'Well, 
you can bet that's a negative pregnant all right,' 



THE FOURTH MEETING 35 

Adams insisted. 'Of course it is,' the other fellow 
admitted, 'but I'll bet that if you try that on Jones, 
he'll agree with me. Just see how that strikes a lay- 
man. What do you say, Jones?' Everybody looked 
at Jones, who felt like a fool. But I had to say some- 
thing, so I said, 'Oh, quit your talking shop. I'll 
agree with both of you. He doesn't deny that he 
struck and he doesn't deny that he kicked; he just 
denies the "and." ' The old fellow bellowed again 
and pounded on the table and shouted out, 'A Daniel 
come to judgment!' By this time I think he'd for- 
gotten where he was. Looked like an actor or a law- 
yer to me. He may have been a good lawyer for 
he agreed with me (Laughs) but he certainly was a 
bad actor. So am I — I 'm talking again. ' ' 

Brown : ' ' The subtlety of this man Jones is amaz- 
ing. He thinks it wouldn 't be courteous to say, ' Talk, 
but don't talk shop,' so he relates a little incident, the 
lesson of which is obvious. Well, I won't talk shop. 
And if you feel that it is not inconsistent with your 
announced policy of becoming a clam, I'd really like 
to get your layman view as to the ethics of a proposi- 
tion, seriousl.y entertained I should think from a news- 
paper account this morning, of removing a bullet from 
a man 's brain in order to save his life ; with a prac- 
tical certainty in the mind of the surgeon that if the 
man's life is saved, he will be made permanently in- 
sane. The report comes from Chicago. The patient, 
I take it, is in the charge of the public authorities in a 
workhouse or poorhouse or some such public institu- 
tion. The surgeon is confident that he can save the 
patient's life but equally confident that the effect of 
the operation will be to make the man permanently 
insane. The official — superintendent — in charge con- 
ceives it to be his duty to save the man's life even if 
it be certain that such a result must follow. The pa- 



36 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

tient is apparently not being consulted. The surgeon 
seems to feel that he is justified in operating at the 
request of the superintendent and I infer from the 
report that the operation is to take place. The sur- 
geon is probably showing the bullet to his personal 
friends by this time and the operation has probably 
been successful. The patient has survived the shock 
and is cheerfully prattling idiocy. What do you think 
of it? Here are questions of ethics for the doctor, the 
lawyer and the layman. Perhaps, also, for the 
theologian. But I wouldn't be surprised if the lay- 
man's view may have a larger measure of common 
sense. I'm always inclined myself to distrust the 
view of experts in ethics. What do you sa}', Jones, is 
it worth while for a man to be given the whole world 
and lose his own soul ? ' ' 

Jones: "I didn't see the item this morning. If I 
were the man's brother, or even brother-in-law, I'd 
pack my gun and start for Chicago — " 

Brown: "I shudder for you, friend Jones. You 
not only declare your willingness to commit a crime 
in Illinois, but are confessing to a felony in New 
York Avhen j^ou admit having a gun to pack, if you 
can't produce a license. You might have avoided that 
by saying, 'I think the man's brother or brother-in-law 
would be justified in packing his gun and starting for 
Chicago.' You may not think much of the law or 
of lawyers, but you certainly need legal advice occa- 
sionally. ' ' 

Jones : ' ' Oh, I 'm safe enough. The police couldn 't 
find the gun — I haven't got one. There wouldn't be 
any 'Hon. corpus delicti' as Wallace Irwin's Jap 
Schoolboy would say. By the way, did any of you fel- 
lows ever read Irwin 's ' Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum ' ? 
There's some real language for you and about as far 



THE FOURTH MEETING 37 

from Robinson's English as you could get and so 
clear that a child could understand it — if brought up 
on the Bowery. I meant to call your attention to it 
the other night, but somebody interrupted me. But 
to get back to the Chicago event. Can they do that 
sort of thing to a man, Brown ? That must be against 
the law, isn 't it ? But that 's a fool question. They 11 
probably get it done before anybody will try to stop 
them. The poor devil probably hasn 't got any friends, 
and the doctor will want to experiment before any- 
body has a chance to stop him. If they put it off for 
a week, the women and the clergymen would start a 
movement and some convention of anti-vivisectionists 
would pass a resolution. But as it can't be stopped, 
I suppose it will just start a discussion on ethics. But 
I think it's a damned outrage. If doctors had any 
conscience or any belief in the soul, such a thing 
couldn't occur. The man's got to die sometime and 
you know that there isn't a man alive who wouldn't 
prefer to die rather than be turned into a gibbering 
idiot the rest of his life. I 'd rather be turned into a 
dog — a sane dog I mean — (Laughs) or a 'chicken' 
(Laughs) or even a healthy bed-bug than become bug- 
house like tliat. What will be left of that man to go 
to Heaven or Hell when he does die ? He couldn 't get 
into either place. ' ' 

Brown; "You don't mean to say, do you, that the 
insane have no souls to be saved or damned?" 

Jones: "Well, I guess they haven't any souls to 
be damned. They could plead insanity, you know, 
(Laughs.) As to whether they have any souls to be 
saved, of course I don't know. I'm not going to dis- 
cuss any such question. Put that to the clergymen. 
They are in the business of saving souls from fire — we 
insurance men are not. (Laughs.) That Chicago 



38 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

story ought to be headlined — 'The Story of A ]\Iis- 
placed Bullet.' The bullet ought to be in the sur- 
geon. ' ' 

Smith: "That's simply a newspaper story. It's 
not likely the surgeon Avould operate if he were cer- 
tain that permanent insanity would follow." 

Jones: "Well, Doctor, I can say that I don't think 
you would do such a thing, but it strikes me that the 
modern surgeon has forgotten that he's a hired man 
and is paid to work in the interest of the felloAv who 
hires him and hasn't any right to consider anything 
else. Looks to me as if most of them are working in 
the interest of science — and notoriety — and regard 
tiieir patients as so much raw material to work on. 
Now the lawyers are different. They work for the 
client's interest, right or wrong, and to Hades with the 
human race. 1 don't mean that lawyers are naturally 
more honest than doctors, but it's to their interest to 
be loyal to their clients. Lawyers aren't w^orrying 
about the science of the law. I guess there isn't any 
such thing to worry about. But you doctors are al- 
ways boasting about the great advance in the science 
of surgery and medicine. The newspapers are full of 
your wonderful new tricks with the knife, and I no- 
tice that the report generally concludes with a state- 
ment that the operation was successful, but the patient 
didn't survive the shock. Now that sort of success 
may satisfy the surgeon, but it is rather disappointing 
to the patient. Every such case ought to be investi- 
gated, and if it is found that the surgeon was experi- 
menting in the interest of science, he ought to be dis- 
armed and sent up for life." 

Smith : "I quite agree with you that there are 
many operations performed without reasonable justi- 
fication, and that there are cases where the operator 
ought to be sent up for life. How is it, Brown, could 



THE FOURTH MEETING 39 

a prosecution for manslaughter or murder be had un- 
der our present laws ? ' ' 

Brown: "Undoubtedly, I think, though I don't 
pretend to be particularly well informed as to any 
branch of our criminal law except such as has to do 
with crimes affecting property right — including, of 
course, and particularly offenses under the Sherman 
anti-trust act. (Everybody laughs.) The difficulty 
would lie in getting proof sufficient to satisfy a jury 
beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been com- 
mitted. Of course a surgeon might deliberately in- 
tend to kill his patient and might be guilty of murder, 
but I think such cases must be extremely rare in fact, 
and ordinarily it would be impossible to prove such a 
charge. Any serious operation undertaken by a sur- 
geon who does not in fact believe that it is necessary 
or desirable on the patient 's account, I have no doubt, 
is a crime under the law, but I don't recall any prose- 
cutions of that character. I've known of many civil 
actions for damages for malpractice and in some such 
cases I've been rather surprised that there was no at- 
tempt at criminal prosecution." 

Smith: "I'm afraid. Brown, that if such prosecu- 
tion should become popular our best surgeons would 
either abandon the profession or need the constant 
advice of skillful lawyers, much as our trust magnates 
do now. I don't think it would be quite fair to a 
surgeon of good repute to compel him to submit to 
a jury of laymen the question of his motives, good 
faith and skill in the performance of an operation. 
After all, you will admit that surgery is necessary and 
that a good surgeon is a pretty valuable citizen." 

Bro\^ai : ' ' Certainly. But that furnishes no reason 
why he should be protected in the commission of crime, 
or why his motives and conduct should be free from 
investigation by somebody authorized to inflict a pun- 



40 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

ishment that will fit the crime. Under our Constitu- 
tion, that body must be a jury. There may be room 
for a difference of opinion as to whether a jury se- 
lected, as now, from the body of taxpayers, is a proper 
tribunal for the trial of such a case ; but I think myself 
that your surgeon would probably be as safe with such 
a jury as he would with a jury composed of lawyers 
or judges. The fact that while such prosecutions are 
possible under present laws, none are undertaken, 
would seem to suggest a general belief on the part of 
Grand Jurors and prosecuting attorneys that juries of 
la.ymen could rarely, if ever, be convinced beyond a 
reasonable doubt of the guilt of the operator. It 
would be a difficult thing for an honest juror with no 
previous knowledge of tliat sul)ject to feel that he was 
capable of forming a just opinion as to the defendant's 
guilt. A jury of doctors, or even lawyers. — if honest 
(Jones laughs) would feel competent to render a true 
verdict and that is what the defendant, no doubt, in 
many cases might not really long for." 

Robinson : "I think there is quite a general dis- 
trust among laymen of doctors and surgeons. As to 
medicine generally, the doctors of this age so often 
cast discredit upon the common practice and use of 
medicine by their public utterances, that it is not sur- 
prising that laymen, at least when well, should have a 
profound distrust, amounting almost to contempt, for 
the professional learning and practice of ordinary 
physicians. I think the general public does really feel 
that most doctors are pretenders who live by trading 
upon the fears and helplessness of their patients. I 
think myself that there must have been a great im- 
provement in the last fifty years, but even now the 
ordinary practitioner makes so little use in his daily 
practice of the newer and better methods of practice, 
that the public, I think, is largely justified in its dis- 



THE FOURTH MEETING 41 

trust. This distrust will never disappear so long as 
your practice savors of that of the alchemist and clair- 
voyant. What I 'm saying, of course, has no personal 
application to you, but to members of the profession 
generally who have not attained special eminence. 
The Latin names of the drugs conceal from the patient 
any knowledge of the elements of his prescription. 
I'm not suggesting a present purpose on the part of 
physicians to withhold this knowledge by the form of 
the prescription, as I understand very well that it 
might be impractical to adopt a new nomenclature and 
that any nomenclature must, for the most part, be one 
whose words would mean little or nothing to the ordi- 
nary patient ; but it is perfectly natural that when an 
ignorant man discovers that the words 'aqua pura' in 
his prescription mean merely water, he will jump 
to the conclusion that the whole thing is humbug, 
and he will think that lie is being charged for 
water. ' ' 

Jones: ''He will think you are watering the 
charge. ' ' 

Robinson: "But concealing the nature of the 
remedy, while a circumstance to arouse suspicion is a 
little circumstance compared with the obvious lack of 
any reasonable investigation of the condition of the pa- 
tient before prescribing, which is so general. The 
ordinary doctor, when called in, feels of the patient's 
pulse, looks at his tongue, asks a few questions concern- 
ing pains or symptoms, looks wise, and leaves the pre- 
scription. He seldom gives the patient his opinion, if 
he has one, as to the cause of his illness ; and in a high 
percentage of cases the doctor hasn't any opinion and 
couldn't form one upon any such limited examination. 
If the patient does not quickly recover, the doctor 
changes his prescription a few times while waiting for 
nature to effect a cure, and only when he can see that 



42 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

the patient is likely to change his doctor, will the phy- 
sician use his stethoscope, examine the urine, make a 
blood test, examine contents of stomach, or do any of 
the many things which might help him to an under- 
standing of the case, even though one or more of such 
steps may have been clearly indicated as wise upon 
the patient's description of his condition at the outset. 
The patient is then made to feel that the doctor is not 
properly attentive to the case, is indignant at what 
he considers, at the least, to be neglect, and wonders 
whether, after all, the later examination is made in 
good faith. lie wonders also whether the doctor knows 
enough to prescribe after his later examination. 
Bernard Shaw is not the first or the only intelligent 
man to charge that the profession is made up mainly 
of quacks and fakers. His preface to his play, 'The 
Doctor's Dilemma,' expresses generally the views of 
most of the readers I think, though, of course, few 
readers would approve everything he says. Doctor, 
you have probably read ^Montaigne's essay on 'The 
Resemblance of Children to their Fathers'?" 

Smith: "I don't remember." 

Robinson: "Well, you will find it worth reading. 
The greater part of the essay is given over to an ac- 
count of medical practices in his own day, based largely 
too on his personal experience. I think you will find 
it amusing. At any rate it will amuse and entertain 
any one but a doctor." 

Smith: "I might criticize your criticism, and may 
do so, if you want my opinion upon the validity of 
your comment. But I will assume for the moment that 
your criticism is just, and then wdiat does it amount to 
more than a charge that many doctors are incompetent 
or careless — which may be with like truth charged 
against lawyers, ministers — and bring discredit upon 
the whole profession? Now, that is a charge neither 



THE FOURTH MEETING 43 

new nor difficult to substantiate. But what remedy do 
you propose? How would you correct the evil?" 

Jones: "Well, Doctor, if I may butt in for a mo- 
ment, — if I keep quiet longer I'm afraid I'll forget 
every good thing that has occurred to me while the 
rest of you have been talking — I'd suggest that you 
really big boys get together and see what you can pro- 
pose in a practical way to make these little fellows not 
only qualify for practice, but afterward practice up to 
their qualifications. Now, I've had a little experience 
with doctors myself, and I know that a big percentage 
of them are lacking in one essential qualification which 
learning and licenses can never provide, and that is, 
common horse sense. Only God could provide that, 
and for some reason, not known to me. He has withheld 
it from a lot of fellows who manage to get a license to 
live on the sick. Now, the lawyers are governed, as I 
understand it, by rules of court in their practice which 
they've got to observe or come to grief. I suppose 
after a lawyer has put the 'Hon. Negative Pregnant' 
into one or two answers he isn't guilty of that crime 
of practice any more. It costs him or his client 
money, and the client is likely to find it out. There 
are some things that I suppose doctors could be com- 
pelled by law to do which would help some. 

"About four years ago, I got sick enough to call in 
the doctor. He was supposed to be the best in the 
town. I was out on the road at the time. I was in 
bed six weeks and you can bet I don't go to bed in 
such a toM^n and such a bed unless I am sick. That fel- 
low called on me fourteen times. He changed his pre- 
scription six times, or at least thought he did. He 
didn't keep any records and trusted to his memory 
of symptoms and conditions on previous calls and to 
his memory as to what he had already prescribed when 
he wrote me out a new one. Now, it stands to reason 



44. THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

that a busy man like him, with twenty or more calls to 
make each day, couldn't possibly remember what he 
had noted as to my condition upon previous visits, or 
even what he had prescribed. I know, in fact, that 
he didn't remember, lie mixed me up W'ith his other 
patients. He would ask me whether I still had a 
pain that I never had; asked me once whether I was 
still constipated, when I hadn't been constipated. 
Well, I had a pretty good nurse and I was allowed to 
talk and I got well. Of course I've never given that 
doctor any credit for my recovery. I don't think he 
did me any good— even by accident. Now suppose the 
law had compelled that fellow, under heavy penalties, 
to make a full record on each visit of what I told him, 
and of what he learned by examination, and of his 
opinions on the case, and of the prescription given, and 
compelled him to give me a copy of it each time or 
leave it with me, and had compelled him to make that 
record, and the record made on each previous visit be- 
fore he asked any more fool questions, or gave a dif- 
ferent prescription. Don't you think it might have 
helped some? He was practically treating a new 
patient every time he called on me. I don't see any- 
thing impractical in such a rule of practice for doc- 
tors, nor anything unreasonable about it, unless the 
suggestion that he put down his opinion each time as 
to what was the matter with me. A doctor might in- 
sist that it would tax him too hard to be compelled to 
give a reason for his prescription." 

Robinson: "Or, like Falstaff, refuse to give a 
reason on compulsion if reasons were as plenty as 
blackberries. ' ' 

Jones: ''Well, his reasons in my case would have 
had to be as plentiful as blackberries to justify six 
different prescriptions. His first guess might be that 
my liver was strained. His second that my spinal cord 



THE FOURTH MEETING 45 

was twisted, and so on. His last ^ess might reason- 
ably have been that my heart was broken or that my 
common sense had received a shock — or that my money 
was all gone." 

Brown: "I'm inclined to approve of your sug- 
gestion, Jones, but I suppose there is something to be 
said against it. It looks too reasonable and sane to be 
free from objection. What have you to say, Doc- 
tor?" 

Smith : ' ' There is much of merit in the suggestion. 
It has, however, one feature that may be of doubtful 
advisability, and that is, the requirement that the 
doctor state his opinion each time as to the nature 
of the disease. No man would like to go on record 
as entertaining a different opinion on that subject six 
times in three weeks, and the temptation would be to 
stick to an opinion once expressed, even though it 
ought to be abandoned — and to continue a treatment 
which ought to be abandoned. Doctors are quite like 
other men, and don't like to admit making mistakes, 
especially admitting the mistake to the patient. I'm 
not saying that doctors ought to be excused for not 
being honest or that they ought to hide their mistakes, 
but we are now discussing the practical value of Jones' 
suggestion, and that means simply whether it would 
work to the net advantage of the patient. 

"There's a further objection to this particular fea- 
ture of the proposed rule of practice which should 
be considered. INIany physicians, I think I may say 
most doctors, are of opinion that in many cases it is 
unwise to inform the patient of the opinion enter- 
tained as to the nature of the disease when the diag- 
nosis indicates some serious or dangerous malady. I 
do not, myself, think it ever advisable to do so until, 
at least, the physician feels reasonably certain that he 
is right, and even then it would be exceedingly harm- 



46 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

ful to some patients. I can see that the plan is much 
weakened if the requirement that the opinion be stated 
should be omitted. Perhaps Brother Jones can sug- 
gest a feasible method of preserving the opinion with- 
out requiring it to be communicated to the patient, 
but I see no way of getting over the first objection that 
the pride of opinion on the part of a physician might 
lead him to persist in error to the patient's harm." 

Jones: "I see, Doctor. You would have made a 
good insurance solicitor. In your business it won 't do 
to scare your customer, while in mine it is necessary 
to scare him. But in each case it is necessary to un- 
derstand what is likely to scare, and when you be- 
come expert in that knowledge, you know how to treat 
the customer. Noav. if I can adroitly lead my well 
customer to think or fear that some dreadful disease 
is likely to show itself soon, while assuring him that I 
think there will be no difficulty in the company's ex- 
aminers passing him if he applies promptly, he makes 
the application promptly; while, if you suggest to a 
sick patient that the symptoms indicate such a dis- 
ease, he worries liimsolf to death. Perhaps it would 
answer if the name of the disease were i)ut down in 
Latin, what do you think of the rest of the plan ? ' ' 

Smith: "I think the rest of the plan good. Of 
course in our hospitals now a partial record of the 
character you suggest is kept, usually by the nurse, 
and the doctor has the report of that. It might be 
made fuller, but as the patient is under constant ob- 
servation, I don't think the plan of much importance 
as applied to the hospital cases." 

Jones (Looking at his watch) : "Gentlemen, I was 
due at my house ten minutes ago. I\Iy wufe is prob- 
ably practicing upon what she intends to say to me 
about it, so I will bid you all good night and take my 
medicine." 



THE FIFTH MEETING 

IN WHICH WE LEARN SOMETHING MORE ABOUT 
WOMEN 

BROWN: ''If I remember right, Jones, you re- 
marked as you said good night, at our last meet- 
ing, that you would go home and take your medicine. 
You're looking well, and I suppose it must have done 
you good. ' ' 

Jones : ' ' Not a particle of good, and I 'd forgotten 
all about it I guess if you hadn't mentioned it." 

Smith: "Forgotten, because not regarded as im- 
portant at the time, I suppose?" 

Jones: "Not exactly that, Doctor. I guess we 
didn't give the full answer to the question as to why 
we forget things. The answer was all right so far as 
it went, but there's more to it. We forget some things 
because they happen so often. If the same thing hap- 
pens a million times we can't pick out one time from 
another. Take sunsets, for instance ; you 've seen thou- 
sands of fine sunsets. Each one interested you at the 
time and you gave your attention to it, and it stirred 
you up and gave you a sort of a bigger and better 
feeling; but you don't remember one sunset from an- 
other after a little while. You can picture a sunset in 
your mind, but you can't remember a particular sun- 
set. If you should see a horse kick a child, you'd 
probably remember it as long as you live. That's 
why I would have forgotten that particular dose of 
medicine: not that my wife is particularly bad that 

47 



48 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

way. So far as I can see, most women are about alike 
in that respect. But I wish you could tell me, Doctor, 
why women pick out the wrong time of day to raise a 
row. They generally tackle you just before bedtime, 
or if you sleep together, after you go to bed, and get 
you into a state of mind where you can't go to sleep. 
When I get mad I'm likely to stay awake two or three 
hours. 1 guess most men will. Now why the devil 
does a woman want to stir a man up so that he will 
lose his sleep and be no good next day? There are 
several times a day when a man ought to be left alone. 

"His wife ought not to nag him just before he 
is ready to leave for his office in the morning. She 
ought to allow him to start off in a good humor, on 
her own account and his. She oughtn't to do it just 
before bedtime, as you know. She oughtn't to do it 
at mealtime and spoil his digestion. Half the stomach 
troubles in this world come from scrapping at meals. 
But if a woman has got anything on her mind which 
she knows will annoy her husband, she is sure to spring 
it at just the wrong time. You're onto psychology 
and women, Doctor, why do they do it?" 

Smith : ' ' What time would you suggest as the ap- 
propriate one for such little eruptions, Jones?" 

Jones: "Well, I don't think they are strictly 
necessary at any time. They're generally about some- 
thing of no importance anyhow. But you'll admit 
that they show a devilish ingenuity in picking out just 
the worst of times." 

Smith: "Woman's intuition, I suppose." 

Jones: "Of course that's no reason at all. You 
don't believe in woman's intuition any more than I 
do. Woman's intuition is generally just woman's sus- 
picion of a man. Her suspicions are generally justi- 
fied because a man's like that. I guess that's a little 
vague, but you know what I mean. A man's always 



THE FIFTH MEETING 49 

doing things that his wife don't want him to do, be- 
cause she doesn't want him to do anything that he 
wants to do, whether there's any harm in it or not. 
She wants to run him and he doesn't want to be run. 
She knows, if she's got any common sense, that he's 
done a dozen things every day that he won't tell her 
about because he knows that she'd find fault, and 
then when she guesses right, it is all attributed to her 
wonderful intuition. Intuition — rot! If that's in- 
tuition, I 've got it myself. I knew the other night by 
that kind of intuition, what I 'd get for being late 
when I got home. I agree with Brown 's lawyer friend 
when he says that women are the most dangerous class 
of people in the world, but it's not because they've got 
intuition; it's because they don't really care a con- 
tinental how much harm they do. A woman isn't 
open and above board. (Everybody laughs). Well, 
we've got a man in our office whose wife must be the 
very devil. She knows how to get him mad, and 
when she wants a new dress or something else he can 't 
afford, she starts in to get him mad. He 's got a quick 
temper and she soon gets him going. Of course it's 
all over in a few minutes; but by that time he's made 
such a fool of himself that he's got to apologize or 
make up and then the new dress is easy. He knows 
her like a book and sees through her from the start, 
but she gets him every time just the same. But that's 
the last out of me to-night on the subject of women. 
Brown's responsible for this. Brown would have 
made a good matador or picador— you know what I 
mean— not one of the bull fighters, but one of those 
fellows who goes into the pen and shakes the red rag 
at the bull to stir him up. Brown ought to be 
ashamed." 

Brown: "Not at all. I think most married men 
can get your point of view, Jones. Most of us are 



50 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

more timid about expressing ourselves and we like to 
hear our own opinions put forcibly by some one who is 
not afraid to speak his mind. Besides I find that you 
have given the general subject a better consideration 
than 1 have, and 1 find some of your suggestions quite 
interesting. Now I'll be a little bit imprudent myself 
and admit that your account of the lady who gets her 
husband mad in order to get a new dress struck me 
as merely funny at the time, but I didn't hear much 
of what followed because all at once some little inci- 
dents in my own experience Hashed into my mind 
and I began to wonder if I hadn't been worked in just 
the same way myself. It had never occurred to me 
before, but I strongly suspect that such may be the 
ease. Our wives are generally dependent upon us 
to such an extent that it's not surprising that they 
should consider themselves justified in resorting to 
artifice to gain their laudable ends when they have 
reason to suppose that we may not readily accept their 
views of what is reasonably necessary or good for 
them. They feel justified in getting their rights and 
if the only way in which a needed dress is to be had 
is to first make the husband mad, the wife is likely to 
know that and make use of ber knowledge. After all, 
it's only an up-to-date application of a very ancient 
bit of wisdom. Whom the Gods would destroy, they 
first make mad." 

Jones : ' ' Oh, I don 't blame a woman for such tricks 
when they are necessary to getting a needed dress, but 
the method is not open and above board, and the 
woman who resorts to it will soon use it to get a dress 
not needed. But I suppose a man whose usual be- 
havior leads his wife into such a practice doesn't de- 
serve anything better. (All laugh at Brown.) My 
wife has never been compelled to resort to that method. 
She simply tells me that she needs it and is going to 



THE FIFTH MEETING 51 

get it, I never say no, having learned that when I 
used to say no I had to take it back or freeze to death 
in the social atmosphere of my own house. Now I 
just say, 'Well, I suppose if you've got to have it, 
you've got to have it. Business is mighty slack just 
now, and if it doesn't improve there's likely to be a 
cut in the office force or salaries, but maybe it will pick 
up. I hope it will. At any rate, I suppose we will 
manage somehow.' Of course I can't always use the 
same stuff, but that's a pattern — you know what I 
mean. If I speak my little piece well and look the 
part, I stand a fair show to win out. Of course I 
don't resort to such low-down tricks unless I do feel 
hardup or that we're spending too much, or honestly 
don't think she needs the dress. If a woman's justi- 
fied in managing a husband, a husband is justified in 
managing a wife. Everything is fair in love and war, 
and marriage is a state of love and war, as you all 
very well know. 

"But, Doctor, I'd like an answer to my question. 
You are much older than I am and are much wiser 
unless you have deceived both the world and the mem- 
bers of the Penny Ante Club. As for the world — 
well, I concede that simple men and foolish men have 
deceived the world — but this Club? No, Doctor, and 
we believe you wise ! Am I right, brothers ? ' ' 

BroAvn : ' ' Right as a trivet ! ' ' 

Robinson: "Right as whatever is!" 

Smith: "Gentlemen and fellow clubmen — this 
splendid and unsolicited tribute moves me more than 
I can express and I fear that I shall make but a sorry 
return for your generous confidence and touching 
faith in the wisdom that comes with years when I as- 
sure you that the wisdom of the old man is even as 
the strength of his limbs — insufficient to support a sus- 
tained defense of the rights of man against the tyranny 



52 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

and cunning of 'the most dangerous class of people 
in the world.' I fear to destroy your illusions lest 
you tind nothing to take their place and have no cour- 
age left to live. The golden age of man is the age of 
Jones, when all religions are sifted through the one- 
inch mesh of reason, and being thus broken down, are 
found to consist of nothing but myths; when God is 
subjected to chemical analysis and found to consist of 
gases in no wise differing from the gas that proceeds 
from the mouth of man; when he announces the dis- 
covery of his own origin and destination, and when 
with a splendid temerity man demands of his intellect 
the why and the wherefore of the ways of woman. 
But, my brothers, I must warn you that it is only in 
the golden age of man — which I have styled tlie Jones 
age, — that this last question can be answered. 

"Age is timid and without convictions; and because 
of its timidity and lack of convictions, is insincere. 
Its claim to wisdom, so long acknowledged by the 
young, is the greatest of all great impositions. Age 
is conservative because without courage or convic- 
tions, and is subservient to established authority, and 
it is on this account that the state and the church 
and all institutions where stability may be threatened 
by the splendid eruptive activity of the young and 
vigorous brain have sought to, and have for years, 
cheated youth of confidence in its own strength by 
the constant teaching and preachment to the very 
young of respect for elders — for gray hairs, and for 
age because of the alleged wisdom that comes with 
age. 'As this temple waxes, the inward service of the 
mind and soul grows wide withal' — but as its founda- 
tions crumble aud its walls totter to their fall, the 
only wisdom found therein is the wisdom of owls. If 
I am to answer the question put to me, therefore, I 
shall not tell you what I now think, but shall tell you 



THE FIFTH MEETING 53 

what I thought when I was of your age, and this I am 
able to do because some thirty years ago I wrote an 
essay upon the subject which I was never able to get 
published and therefore have never been able to for- 
get, because I then thought my views of great impor- 
tance to the world at large and my disappointment 
was keen. I have the manuscript with me, having an 
intimation from our friend. Brown, that he intended 
to start our friend Jones once more upon this inter- 
esting theme and thinking you might be interested to 
know how I viewed the subject thirty years ago. It is 
entitled : 

'' 'A Scientific Discourse on the Position of Woman 
in the Universe, Including a Chapter on Her Relation 
to Other Animals, with a Critical Examination of the 
Argument for and against the Existence of a Feminine 
Soul.' Before reading this, I ought to say that this 
was the first of a series of intended articles which, if 
written, would have covered the subject as compre- 
hensively as does the title, but as I was never able to 
find a publisher for this first article, I abandoned the 
work and hence don't know what my views were upon 
points not covered by this discussion, which you will 
readily understand since it was, I believe, argued and 
settled at our meeting, that no man has any views or 
opinions worthy of the name until he has expressed 
the same in language. 

(Reading from manuscript.) " 'If we accept the 
Biblical account of the origin of Woman, we cannot 
regard her as any part of the original plan of the 
Creator when He fashioned our Universe and deter- 
mined to people it Avith beings possessing immortal 
souls. He fashioned Adam in His own image and 
breathed into him the breath of life — or in other words 
animated Adam by direct impartation of a portion of 
the divine life, which can mean nothing but the gener- 



54 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

ation of the soul of Adam. The mere body of Adam 
was a mere natural image, formed from materials 
previously created and not differing in nature from 
a statue made by a sculptor. It was adapted, how- 
ever, to become the habitation of a soul, much as a 
suit of clothes is made of matter in a form adapted to 
become a covering for the body of man. When it is 
borne in mind (a fact commonly overlooked by the 
careless reader) that the soul and body were not 
created simultaneously, but came into being as the 
result of two distinct and independent acts, it will be 
understood how a human body, perfect in all its parts 
and organs, with all bodily functions essential to its 
growth or continued existence, may exist without a 
soul; and the question is at once suggested whether 
woman can rest a claim to be possessed of a soul upon 
the liiblical account of her creation. We think it 
clear that her contention cannot be rested upon the 
Biblical account. Of course this is not conclusive 
unless it be established that the Biblical account is 
complete, and we think this has not j-et been demon- 
strated. The most that can be safely said is, that it 
furnishes negative evidence against the claim of woman 
by its entire omission of any account of her having 
been so endowed. The claim of woman to belong to 
the same order of being as man is generally rested on 
certain analogies existing between her and man which 
are far from conclusive, or even convincing, evidence 
of her claim to belong to the same order. These 
analogies may be stated as follows: Woman has con- 
sciousness, something resembling reason and intuition. 
As to the claim that woman has intuition, it may be 
conceded, but inasmuch as man has it not, it is clear 
that the concession does not support her main con- 
tention, but rather weakens it, and tends strongly to 
disprove it. While consciousness and an inferior sort 



THE FIFTH MEETING 55 

of reason are evidently possessed by many of the in- 
ferior animals created before Adam, not in the image 
of the Creator and not receiving the breath of life or 
soul, it cannot seriously be contended that the Biblical 
account of Creation lends any support to a theory that 
animals, other than man, are endowed with souls; yet 
every argument that may be advanced in favor of 
woman's contention might be advanced in favor of 
the serpent or the fish. It is worthy of mention that 
the rib of Adam from which woman was fashioned 
was created, and doubtless in its perfect state, before 
Adam's soul was created, hence the rib could not be 
any part of the soul and woman got no soul by or 
through the mere process of creating her from a rib 
having none; and it is at least peculiar that special 
mention should be made of the generation of the soul 
of Adam and the state of Eve left in uncertainty. If 
it had been, at the time, suspected that woman would 
ever advance such a claim, and her claim be denied, it 
would seem that she would have been supplied with 
the same record proof as Adam. 

" 'It is not my purpose at this time to complete the 
examination of this interesting subject, but merely to 
point out the fact that the question exists and has 
existed from the beginning, and thus to account, in 
a great measure, for the actual position of woman in 
civilized states. From the earliest dawn of history 
to modern times, woman has unhesitatingly been 
classed with inferior animals as a chattel owned by the 
man, and accorded no rights as an independent being 
and afforded no protection of the laws except such as 
needed to be accorded her in order to preserve her to 
her husband and to prevent the impairment of her 
ability to serve him, or possibly the state. In former 
ages it was quite common to give the husband power of 
life and death over his wives and daughters ; and where 



56 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

the power has been withdrawn, as it has been with- 
drawn in many modern states, it will be found, upon a 
close historical examination of the causes leading to 
such change in the laws, that the change has not been 
made in the interest of woman herself, but in the in- 
terest of the state; and the change has its foundation 
in the same public policy that now prohibits, in many 
cases, the wilful and wanton destruction of property 
by the owner. — That policy which prohibits the burn- 
ing of corn and the destruction of other forms of prop- 
erty by the owner — a policy which denies the complete 
and absolute dominion of the subject over any form of 
property and recognizes only a usufruct in the indi- 
vidual with ultimate ownership in the state. It is 
true, that in modern times, and especially in this cen- 
tury, there has been legislation which has tended to 
what is often styled an amelioration of the conditions 
of woman, or more fully styled, the emancipation of 
woman, which has seemed to rest upon a concession of 
a right in woman to be treated as a being of the same 
high order as man. But again it will be found that 
such legislation, though apparently in recognition of 
such right, is really not based upon any such principle, 
but is founded purely on the convenience of the state 
or of man; and it has extended only so far as it has 
pleased man to carry it. Such legislation has for its 
basis the same considera'tion of public good as has led 
to laws prohibiting unnecessary cruelty to animals, 
and requiring the owners to properly care for the 
same. The state is always harmed by wasteful or 
wanton destruction of any form of useful pi'operty. 
The correctness of the views here expressed, we shall 
ask our readers to assume for the present, but we prom- 
ise to demonstrate their truth in a more particular 
exposition in a later part of this work by copious refer- 
ences to the writings of the ancients and the works 



THE FIFTH MEETING 57 

of the poets, the legal codes and judicial decisions of 
both ancient and modern times, and by Herbert 
Spencer's Cyclopedia of Sociological Facts— if he shall 
have completed the same in time. 

" 'My purpose in this first article is to show that 
the conduct of woman is to be judged of and explained 
upon the assumption that her real position, her real 
relationsip to man, is not different in kind from that 
of the ox, the horse, the dog, fox, serpent or other ani- 
mal, useful or harmful to man ; and that she is moved 
to act by the same influences and under the same char- 
acter of stimulus as regulates, governs and controls 
other animals in their conduct towards man ; conduct 
that will be found to range from servile obedience, 
down through pretended obedience, cunning evasion 
and direct rebellion and defiance of the divinely consti- 
tuted Lord of Creation. 

" 'It is only by adopting this premise we are con- 
strained to believe that a scientific, psychological study 
of the mental operations of what Webster significantly 
but inaccurately styles the female part of the human 
race, can be productive of practical benefit to man or 
enable him to understand or predict her probable 
course of conduct under given conditions. Let us, 
then, approach the subject in this truly scientific spirit 
and establish general rules for interpretation of the 
conduct of woman towards man which may furnish 
every husband with a method whereby he may obtain 
that obedience which the contract of marriage, or 
more properly speaking, the fact of marriage, entitles 
him to, and so derive the highest return or benefit 
from the use of this particular species of property. 

The only motives of the lower animals in their con- 
duct towards man will be found to be the hope of re- 
ward or fear of punishment; anticipated benefit or 
harm. They are not influenced by higher considera- 



58 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

tions and not influenced by what we call moral prin- 
ciple. AVe may confidently expect to find, as we pro- 
ceed, that Avoman occupying, as she has for ages, a 
similar position as respects man, is controlled in her 
dealings with man only by the same considerations.' " 

Jones : ' ' Doctor, how much more is there of that 
dope?" 

Smith: ''About fifty pages." 

Jones: "May I look at that last page? I'm not 
certain that I heard aright as you read." 

Smith: "Certainly." (Hands sheet to Jones.) 

Jones (After examination, handing sheet back) : 
"I got you all right. Is that the original manuscript, 
Doctor?" 

Smith: "Yes." 

Jones: "I see that the water-mark in the paper 
shows that it was manufactured in 1912, and so I nat- 
urally infer that you have departed from your duty as 
a man to be open and above board in jialming this off 
onto us as an ancient writing. I fear me. Doctor, 
that this is intended as a cunning satire on the views 
of Jones. After hearing that manuscript to this 
point, I find that there is only one statement in it 
that meets with my unqualified approval and that is 
to the effect that age is timid and without convictions 
and that its wisdom is the wisdom of owls. I move 
3^ou, Gentlemen, that further reading of this docu- 
ment be suspended for the present and then for all 
time. It is only by such action that we can make the 
punishment fit the crime. This man — God made him 
— must have put in all of his spare time during the 
past week, and a lot that was not spare time, in the 
writing of the unread fifty pages, and I can think of 
no greater, hence no more fitting, punishment than 
denying him the privilege of reading it. The Doctor 
is an amusing cuss, I grant you, but as the result of 



THE FIFTH MEETING 59 

calling upon him for an honest, and possihly in- 
structive, opinion on a subject that he ought to, but 
probably don't, know something about, I think, after 
looking^ at my watch, that I am just where I was at 
the close of the last meeting— ten minutes late— and 
must go with prospect of being compelled to take an- 
other dose of the same medicine and without any new 
philosophical view to comfort me." 



THE SIXTH MEETING 

IN WHICH WE LEARN SOMETHING OF LAWYERS 

JONES : "Brown, you started us on a raid against 
surgeons and doctors generally last week by call- 
ing attention to the case of the man in Chicago with a 
bullet in his brain which some surgeon was going to 
remove in order to save the patient's life, though the 
effect of the operation would be to produce a perma- 
nent insanity. Now, in tliinking that over, I'm in- 
clined to think you referred to the news item with 
malice prepense. You thought by making the iniqui- 
ties of the doctors a subject of discussion, you and 
your profession would escape our attention for a time 
at least and you succeeded in your purpose. 

"By the same ^Machiavellian method you steered 
the conversation at our last meeting so as to give the 
doctor a chance to satirize my views upon women, or 
rather poke fun at me, to make me appear ridiculous. 
Robinson agrees with me in this, and on the way over 
we concluded that it was about time for you to come 
out into the open and answer for your profession why 
it is that in the opinion of mankind, from very ancient 
times down to the present day, your profession has 
been considered a necessary evil — its members gener- 
ally suspected of having no respect for justice, and 
your services purchaseable in aid of law-breaking and 
law-breakers and all sorts of dishonest undertakings. ' ' 

Brown : "AVell, I might answer by saying that you 
60 



THE SIXTH MEETING 61 

are evidently mistaken as to the real attitude of the 
public, and as evidence, point to the fact that in this 
country the confidence of the people in the general 
integrity of the bar is so great that they will not suf- 
fer any except lawyers to become judges. Now the 
people are not so silly as not to believe that honesty in 
a judge is an indispensable quality ; yet from this high 
office they exclude doctors, authors, sellers of insur- 
ance policies — yea, even ministers of the gospel. 
Whether it is 'because you are judged rightly or 
wrongly as possessing a less inflexible integrity than 
lawyers, or merely lacking in ability to arrive at the 
truth of a controverted matter, or having arrived at 
the truth, lacking in a sense of justice or ability to dis- 
tinguish the right from the wrong — it is nevertheless 
true that you are excluded, by common consent, from 
an office wherein all these qualities are desirable in a 
superlative degree; while lawyers are, by the same 
common consent, including the approval of insurance 
vendors, doctors, and authors, declared to be the only 
class of men fit for judicial duties and powers. You, 
Jones and Robinson, would at once ridicule a proposi- 
tion to elect our judges from the medical profession. 
You, Doctor and Jones, would treat with scorn a 
proposition to put our authors upon the bench. And 
the whole humorous world would hoot at a suggestion 
that peddlers of insurance would make fit judges. No, 
vou will all say, ' These lawyers are all damned rascals, 
but God save us from the justice of the illogical, unin- 
formed and knavish man ; hence, give us no doctors, no 
authors, no ministers. We will trust, rather, to men 
trained in a profession whose daily practice is open to 
the knowledge and criticism of the whole world ; where 
the illogical, uninformed, incompetent or dishonest 
must be soon detected and exposed; a profession, 
therefore, in which the qualities of honesty, clear 



62 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

thinking, and the powers of righteous judgment are 
most certainly developed in the highest degree." 

Jones: "You'd have a fat chance of convincing a 
man of good horse sense that there's anything logical 
in that stump speech. It is the use of just such clap- 
trap to confuse and mislead jurors into giving wrong 
verdicts, and other like insincere practices, that has 
justified the general Avant of faith in you. 

"The law does not exclude a carpenter, a doctor or 
a scavenger from the bench. Whatever a man's busi- 
ness may be, if he qualifies for admission to the bar 
by passing the necessary examinations to admit him 
to practice, he becomes available to appointment or 
election to the bench. It isn't a legal impediment to 
elevation to the bench that the candidate has knowl- 
edge of something beside the law. A knowledge of 
the law is considered to be 'indispensable' in a judge 
and a study of the law does not necessarily convert an 
honest man into a rascal. It is the actual practice of 
the law as a business for dollars and cents that de- 
bases, or is supposed to debase. Strange as it may 
seem, it appeared to be the general belief, until recent 
years, that a pettifogging lawyer raised to the bench 
was converted into an oracle of wisdom and became 
thereby invested with a conscience and was not only 
incapable of dishonesty, but was free from the minor 
infirmities of bias, prejudice and partiality which, in 
a normal human being, will influence conduct. In 
these days confidence in the courts is weakened just 
as belief in miracles is disappearing, and the judges 
are coming in for free criticism and will all soon be up 
against the recall. I'm surprised myself that it has 
not yet been proposed that no practicing lawyer, or 
one who has practiced the profession for profit, should 
ever become a judge. I suppose it might be claimed 
with some reason that legal attainments sufficient to 



THE SIXTH MEETING 63 

admit a man to practice ought to be sufficient to qualify 
him for the bench. I can see that there might be a 
difficulty in persuading our young men to study law 
with no other object than to become candidates for 
the bench. Appointment or election would be too 
uncertain to justify such a course. But it would not 
be necessary that they should do that. Several thou- 
sand young men are annually turned out of our law 
schools— from whom judges might be selected. Such 
as were not selected for judicial positions could enter 
upon the practice of the law. Nine out of ten gradu- 
ates would be willing and would feel honored at being 
selected for the bench. Of course the young man 
knows little of business or life, but the standard of 
attainments could be raised and the age for admission 
to the bar fixed at, say, twenty-five years, or later. If 
you want to get an honest man I think you've got to 
capture him young in these days. Even soliciting in- 
surance has a tendency to take the fine edge off his 
moral sense. But the practice — actual practice of the 
law — is generally believed to be especially pernicious 
and destructive of integrity in the individual. It is 
supposed that the successful practicing attorney must 
prostitute his abilities and since he is guilty and knows 
he is guilty of this unfaithfulness to high ideals, he 
suffers a general deterioration of moral character 
somewhat similar to that which ruins a woman who 
prostitutes her body. 

"Now, Brother Brown, I'd like to get your honest 
opinion upon the point as to the effect upon the moral 
character of the practice of the law as it is carried on 
to-day by what may be called reputable members of 
your profession. Afterwards, I think it might be 
worth while to consider whether it would not be well 
seriously to consider divorcing the bench from the 
bar. Of course I have not given any consideration to 



64 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

this and am only saying what comes into my mind 
now. I know even less of this subject than I do of 
women. ' ' 

Smith: "I'd like very much to hear from you, 
Brown — to hear your real views upon the subject. ' ' 

Brown: "I don't think that the practice of the 
law is likely to convert a dishonest man into an honest 
one or an honest man into a rascal, but 1 think we 
have little to do with honest or dishonest men, since 
there is no such thing as a man who can be accurately 
described as such. All men are more or less honest 
and more or less dishonest. Your real inciuiry is di- 
rected, I suppose, to the ethics of actual practice by 
reputable men. Lawyers of standing and reputation 
must in the transaction of business generally conform 
to what is generally allowed to be permissible in 
lawyers, or they will soon lose their standing and re- 
pute. When we come to a consideration of much that 
is conventionally allowable, we find much to question. 
I have myself always been surprised at the leniency 
shown by the public to lawyers who have engineered 
swindling transactions for clients, so long as they were 
not interested as principals in the shady transactions. 
Counsel for a railway company will carry out the plans 
of a dishonest president or board of directors for 
swindling the creditors or stockholders of the com- 
pany, and although their own salaries are paid out of 
moneys belonging to stockholders, will not utter a pro- 
test or advise the stockholders of the fact that they 
are being betrayed. By way of illustration : the presi- 
dent of the company or members of the board of di- 
rectors will be secretly interested in commissions paid 
bankers who underwrite the company's bonds and per- 
haps in options given to bankers for the purchase of 
company securities at heavy discounts and frequently 
such is the case, even where the statutes forbid such 



THE SIXTH MEETING 65 

connections. Where this is the case, the company 
counsel is likely to be informed of the fact. Now, no 
matter how unfairly the company may have been 
treated; how unfair the commissions and the dis- 
counts; how unreasonable the prices to be paid for 
the securities ; no matter that counsel knows that such 
arrangements would never be made or authorized by 
disinterested officers; in other words, no matter how 
clear the betrayal of trust in the transaction — the 
counsel for the company will draft the contracts and 
do all legal work necessary to carry such transactions 
through, and continue to draw his salary from the 
treasury — that is, from the stockholders — without dis- 
closing the fact that they are being robbed. Now, no 
good lawyer, for a moment, can justify such a course 
to his conscience, A good lawyer can better distin- 
guish right from wrong than can a good doctor or 
plumber or merchant or minister. It is his trade to 
weigh human conduct in the scales of justice. Why, 
then, you may ask, and how can you reputable lawyers 
explain his course of action if he cannot justify it 
from a moral point of view? What can be said in 
extenuation of such a course? How can he maintain 
a shred of self-respect while taking the money of the 
stockholders in pay for his services rendered in aid 
of their betrayal, or of what he believes to be their be- 
trayal ? His answer will be somewhat as follows : 

' ' He will say the stockholders have selected a board 
of directors as their agents to conduct the business 
with full authority to employ counsel to advise upon 
matters of law, but not to take part or have any voice 
in the management of the business. It is assumed that 
counsel will confine himself to his own functions, and 
he will have discharged the same if he shall point out 
to the board or its officers any illegality in a proposed 
transaction. If, notwithstanding his advice is against 



66 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

the legality, the officers and directors proceed with 
the transaction, he will say that he has done all that 
counsel for the company is expected, even by the stock- 
holders, to do. The cases are numerous where stock- 
holders have called officers and directors to account 
for illegal or fraudulent acts of management, but I do 
not recall an attempt to hold counsel for the company, 
except where he has participated in the profits of the 
fraudulent transaction — nor any case where there has 
been any attempt to charge counsel because of his 
knowledge of the fraud and his silence or omission to 
call the same to the attention of stockholders. And, 
indeed, I think it is generally considered that general 
counsel for the company is simply general counsel to 
the officers and the board. The practical situation 
must be taken into account. The president or the 
board has the power to em])loy and discharge counsel. 
Any attorney who would expose to the stockholders a 
proposed mismanagement of the company would be at 
once discharged, nor would he get similar employment 
from the management of any other corporation. All 
of this is well understood by the general public in- 
cluding stockholders, and such action is not expected 
of counsel. The lawyer will therefore say that it is 
no part of his engagement, express or implied, to do 
more than to give his best opinion upon the legality of 
proposed action, and that having done this, his duty 
is discharged. 

' ' Now such a line of defense does not, in fact, satisfy 
any good lawyer. He knows that he would at once 
drop the whole dirty business or rather force it to be 
dropped by threatening exposure, if it were not for 
two things : first, he would lose his practice at once 
and his employment is often his only means of liveli- 
hood ; second, he w^ould be generally condemned by the 
great unthinking public as having himself betrayed 



THE SIXTH MEETING 67 

the trust of his employers — the men constituting the 
board. The public would say, 'That man is not fit 
to be trusted. It is true that in this case he has ex- 
posed an iniquitous fraud, but his only knowledge 
of that fraud came to him in professional confidence 
and he has betrayed the men w'ho trusted him and 
from whom he was getting his bread and butter. ' The 
public has contempt for an informer or squealer. 
They haven't much respect even for detectives, and 
no lawyer could ever hope for further business, who 
would set his own judgment as to what is right and 
wrong against that of his employer. All this is felt 
by every one, and hence the lawyer is not severely, or 
perhaps at all, condemned in such a case. But the 
lawyer himself does feel that he is prostituting his 
talents. He doesn't feel clean. He says to himself 
that the whole business is unmoral and that a better 
and stronger man than himself would refuse his part 
in the transaction. He feels that he can not justify 
himself to himself for countenancing a fraud because 
the public do not expect him to be scrupulously hon- 
est; and is ashamed of himself for consenting to a 
code of ethics which assumes for its basic principle 
that he may be inferior in honesty to his fellowmen 
without shame." 

Smith : ' ' Well, Jones, considering the source from 
which that statement of the case comes, we'll have 
to concede that the practice of the law^ does not at 
least entirely obliterate the sense of right and wrong." 

Jones: "Perhaps not. Doctor; but if the success- 
ful practice of the law does, of necessity, require, upon 
the part of the practitioners, such a course as Mr. 
Brown describes, it would seem to me that the public 
is well justified in scoffing at the integrity of even 
our best lawyers. They would seem to be a specially 
licensed criminal class; licensed to commit acts that 



68 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

in any one else but lawyers would be punishable 
crimes. When I suggested the analogy between the 
prostitution of talents by a lawyer and the prostitu- 
tion of the body by a woman, I had no idea that the 
cases are really so similar, and upon the whole, it 
strikes me that the 'extenuating circumstances,' as 
Brown would call them, more nearly approach a jus- 
tification from a moral point of view in the case of 
the woman. In each case the need to live or obtain 
the means of livelihood is the chief extenuating cir- 
cumstance, but the mentally well equipped man in 
good health (and your first-class lawyer generally is 
such) is under no necessity to adopt such a profes- 
sion, while the woman in question, without education 
usually, and poorly endowed to earn a clean living, 
may often find prostitution a practical necessity to 
avoid actual want. You understand 1 'm not attempt- 
ing to justify either of these unfortunate classes — 
prostitutes or laAvyers — but of the two, the greater or 
better excuse does not seem to lie wuth the lawyers. 

"Of course there may be a difference of opinion as 
to which is the greater offender when we take into 
account the nature of the offenses or crimes commit- 
ted. Murder committed for gain may be more wicked 
than theft, but murder or killing in self-defense is 
considered justifiable, and theft committed by an 
actually starving wretch may be justified to the moral 
sense of the community whether the law will excuse it 
or not. If no better case can be made for the legal 
profession than is made by Mr. Brown, who is one of 
its shining lights, it would seem to me that it might 
be well to do away entirely with the practicing attor- 
ney. Of course my offhand suggestions are not en- 
titled to much weight and I don't myself attach weight 
to them. It seems to me now that the particular evils 
that Brown has been describing are not really inci- 



THE SIXTH MEETING 69 

dent to advocacy — or litigated matters — but arise out 
of work done by lawyers acting in an advisory ca- 
pacity in the conduct of business. It might meet the 
evil if they were treated in all such matters as prin- 
cipals or accessories to the fraud, in the same way 
and to the same extent that others, not licensed to 
practice law, would be treated for like acts. The sub- 
ject is certainly well worth consideration by us so 
long as we seem to have set about forming opinions 
upon all sorts of sociological problems. 

"But Brown hasn't yet given us his opinion as to 
whether the practice of the law unfits a man to be 
an upright .judge, whether the actual practice leads 
to a moral degeneracy such as amounts to a disquali- 
fication for such an office. 

"According to my watch it is time to adjourn, and 
I think perhaps we 've given ourselves enough to think 
over for one evening. I feel that way about it my- 
self. But I don't want to drop this subject here, 
and hope that at the next meeting, or at some subse- 
quent meeting the Penny Ante Club may hear more 
of it." 



THE SEVENTH MEETING 

IN WHICH "WTE LEARN YET MORE OF WOMEN 

JONES: "Doctor, have you got with you the rest 
of the essay on Woman 's Position in the Universe 
— the unread portion, I mean?" 

Smith: "I left it in the library here, having no 
doubt that you would be anxious, upon reflection, to 
hear the rest of it at some time, and especially as I 
left off reading at the point where I was about to 
point out the method by which wives ought to be kept 
in the place to which the Lord evidently assigned 
them." 

Brown : "I suppose your methods are worked out 
upon your theory that women are a part of the lower 
animal kingdom, and our approval of them must log- 
ically depend upon our acceptance of that theory?" 

Smith : ' * Yes, I think that is perhaps true, but a 
consideration of the practical working or conse- 
quences of a strict adherence to the rules which I sug- 
gest will, I think, furnish strong additional support 
to the theory. I'm willing to give you the benefit 
of the rest of it, if you all wish it." 

Robinson : "Go on. Doctor. ' ' 

Smith (Reading) : " 'Now it must be admitted 
that generally speaking the only animals that man 
has been able to turn to account without killing, are 
those that he has made dependent upon himself for 
subsistence. I do not mean by this that only such 
animals as are dependent upon man for subsistence 

70 



THE SEVENTH MEETING 71 

can be of any account to him, but merely that he is 
not able to direct the actions of animals not so de- 
pendent upon him. Of course the earth worm is not 
dependent upon man yet its labors have been of un- 
told benefit to him. The rule for the treatment must 
be found in the character of service desired, when we 
come to a comparison of the treatment to be accorded 
a woman and that given any other particular ani- 
mal. For example, woman should not be overfed 
nor permitted to overfeed since she cannot so ef- 
fectively perform any kind of labor if permitted to 
grow too fat; while in the case of the hog, since no 
labor upon its part is desired and since its value to 
man is only as its body may be converted into food 
for man or articles of commerce, it is wise to encour- 
age the hog to grow in bulk as fast as possible. But 
it is clear — if I may indulge in a pleasantry while 
at the same time stating a profound economic truth 
— that a wife should not be permitted to make a 
hog of herself, because her value to her husband in 
any aspect of the case will be impaired by such a 
course. Her ability to do any kind of manual labor 
must be seriously impaired. Her value for orna- 
mental purposes — as for example to preside over the 
husband 's table — would be greatly reduced ; while 
her occasional employment as a lure in the husband's 
commercial activities would in these days be rendered 
impossible.' " 

Jones: "An anachronism. Doctor. Thirty years 
ago, the skinny woman was not in favor with the gen- 
eral public, nor with business men. As a small boy 
I overheard much salacious speech concerning women 
by the habituees of barber shops and country stores, 
and my recollection is that the fat woman, deep- 
bosomed and broad-hipped, was the tormentor of the 
souls and bodies of men of that generation." 



72 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

Smith: "A palpable hit! as Hamlet would say. 
But may I not be guilty of anachronism without being 
wholly condemned when all the world knows that 
Shakespeare himself regarded anachronistic use of 
material as legitimate? Where was I when inter- 
rupted by this flippant youth? 'By the Mass, I was 
about to say something!' Oh yes! (Reading.) 

" 'Now our English forbears, without perhaps a 
full appreciation of the scientific basis of their action, 
perceived the general doctrine which I have laid 
down, when their laws provided that upon marriage 
all the personal property and ehoses in action of the 
wife should become the sole property of the husband 
upon being reduced to his possession ; and that all 
wages or other proceeds of her labor should there- 
after belong to her husband, so that the wife could 
not even give an acquittance or discharge — no more 
than can a horse — for services rendered to another ; 
and if by any accident or improvidence payment 
were made to her, instead of to her husband, the lat- 
ter could sue for and again recover from the debtor, 
unless, perhaps, where the moneys paid the wife ac- 
tually came into his possession. The wife was no 
more capable of contracting, or being contracted with, 
than was an ox, I do not remember that under the 
common law of England a wife was ever the subject 
of barter and sale as has been the case in many other 
countries, but this right was denied, I think, not be- 
cause of any right upon the part of the woman to 
be free from sale, but solely because of our abhor- 
rence for monopoly and a fear that the wealthy 
voluptuaries would acquire all the women of child- 
bearing age in the realm and the growth of popula- 
tion be checked ; the consequences of which would be 
a fall in the price of land. It may be laid down as 
a significant fact in the history of the human race 



THE SEVENTH MEETING 73 

that women have been so greatly restricted in the 
right to acquire property as to be kept incapable of 
achieving, anywhere, substantial independence of 
man. I mean that this has been the policy of great 
civilizations during the period of progressive growth. 
This principle has not generally been departed from 
until wealth has accumulated and in consequence the 
manual labor of woman was no longer essential to 
the support of the people. The labor of woman being 
generally less valuable than that of man, and limited 
in character by her lack of bodily strength, is the 
first dispensed with as wealth accumulates. The ef- 
fect is soon apparent. Women quickly deteriorate 
in moral quality when supported in ease and idle- 
ness. Goldsmith speaks: 

Unhappy land to hast'ning ills a prey 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay. 

Goldsmith was lacking in scientific method and takes 
but a superficial view when he attributes the decay 
of men to the accumulation of wealth. The decay of 
man is preceded by the decay of woman which fol- 
lows hard upon the accumulation of wealth in which 
she is permitted to share. Possession of property 
means independence of man. Independence in either 
man or woman means free love, and any nation which 
by its laws or customs permits woman to accumulate 
property readily, strikes a death blow to the con- 
ventional morality which demands chastity of the 
woman. And when the chastity or virtue of any 
woman ceases to be regarded as a property right in 
her husband or man, his control over her for all pur- 
poses practically ceases. 

" 'Man's greater bodily strength gives him a 
monopoly of most wealth producing vocations, and 
hence a greater control of means of subsistence than 



74 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

woman, unaided, could acquire. In competition with 
man woman would naturally be forced into the least 
productive or remunerative labors, and hence if men 
and women each pursued independently for their sev- 
eral gain the pursuits to which nature has adapted 
them, we should find mankind rich and womankind 
poor. Moreover women as a class, if not supported 
by men, would, if compelled to bear children (which 
is a God-imposed handicap), probably be unable to 
support themselves and wouUl perish from the face 
of the earth. The woman is therefore, by the law 
of nature, dependent u[)on man for support, and all 
attempts to make women as a class independent of 
the support of men are presumptuous and foolish 
attempts to remake and reconstitute the Universe, 
doomed to failure in that, if carried through, 
they will probably destroy the civilization in which 
they were tolerated. Now women with independent 
means of support do not willingly bear children. This 
is a truth which may be supported by casual ob- 
servation and which is borne out by history. Giv- 
ing women financial independence is the surest race 
suicide. The assertion that women as a class want 
to bear children is the sheerest nonsense. The 'in- 
stinct of motherhood' is practically non-existent in 
females of any kind and probably no greater in 
women than in any other animals. ^lother love, in- 
deed, exists after a child is born and continues while 
the child is young and helpless, provided an intimate 
personal contact with the child is maintained, but 
even mother love will not ordinarily be strong unless 
the mother cares for the child and will not ordinarily 
survive long separations. The mother love is often 
stronger in the grandmother than in the mother; 
often as strong in the nurse as in the mother; and 
when we have eliminated from consideration that love 



THE SEVENTH MEETING 75 

which a woman not the mother of a child will have 
for it if given sole care of the child, we shall find 
that the residuum of love which may be attributed 
to the mother, as such, is negligible. The families 
of the rich are small because the husband really pur- 
chases domestic peace by releasing the wife of her 
obligations to him and gives her financial independ- 
ence by recognizing a fallacious and ruinous doctrine 
that a woman is entitled to live in a manner befitting 
the rank and station of her husband, or because the 
husband prefers to put his wife to uses for which 
she would be unfitted while breeding. 

" 'But why, you may inquire, does the poverty of 
the family and especially the financial dependence of 
the wife favor increase in population, if the desire 
for offspring is not strong in either the male or the 
female? If called upon to answer this question, I 
would say that the wife of the poor man or the poor 
wife of a rich man will more readily consent to bear 
a child in such cases as it may please the husband to 
require her to do so. Further — and this is a cogent 
reason — such a woman has so few pleasures that 
would be interfered with by childbearing that her 
reluctance to have children is comparatively small, 
while the pleasures that she will derive from associa- 
tion with her children and from their love for her will 
be comparatively much greater than in the case of a 
woman well supplied with money and permitted to 
spend the same in dress or other scandalous diver- 
tisements and follies. 

" 'But, after all, I do not need to resort to argu- 
ment or psychological analogies to find the cause of 
woman's conduct I need only to point to the tin- 
questioiiahle fact that the financially independent 
woman practically ceases voluntary childbearing, as 
a conclusive reason for not permitting such finau- 



76 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

cial independence if we consider, as we must, the 
perpetuation of the race a desirable thing;." 

Jones: "Doctor, will you pardon an interrup- 
tion? The greater part of that precious manuscript 
of yours shows your purpose to satirize Jones and 
his views of womankind, but haven't you forgotten 
your purpose in the last few pages and expressed 
your own real opinion of the feminist movement and 
consequences to be apprehended from it? Do you 
really believe that the general movement for the 
emancipation of woman is bad for the nation and for 
the race?" 

Smith: "I warned you at the outset that I would 
only give you opinions entertained by me at your 
age. I\ry opinions at the age of sixty are of no prac- 
tical importance. At sixty a man is likely to be old- 
fashioned in his views. At thirty-five a man thinks 
he knows it all and is so confident in his opinion that 
he seldom wholly abandons it — in other words — an 
old man at sixty will have opinions that were current 
twenty-five years before. You can often reconstruct 
the prevailing modes of dress of a twenty-five-year- 
distant period by a close observance of the dress of 
a man of fifty. It may show in his necktie or his 
hat or his shoes or his culT-links. He will ordinarily 
wear a permissible style, but not the most advanced, 
and his style will be that permissible one most re- 
sembling a good, or perhaps advanced, style of the 
earlier period. When you observe that a man of 
sixty years wears a black satin or silk necktie, which 
he fastens into a bow himself, while the prevailing 
style for the man of thirty-five is the four-in-hand, 
you may be sure that twenty-five years before the 
prevailing style for the man of thirty-five was a 
black satin or silk tie made into such a bow. His 
cuff-links are such as were worn by the fashionable 



THE SEVENTH MEETING 77 

young man of thirty-five, twenty -five years ago. Old 
fashions linger with reasonable modification and 
are tolerated in the old because of the persistence of 
convictions formed at the age of thirty-five, as to 
what is a decent and reasonably smart dress. Un- 
consciously (for the most part), every generation 
recognizes the fact that habits of life — manners and 
opinions — formed at that period of life which I have 
styled the golden age of man — or the Jones age — 
obsess and possesses the victim or fortunate pos- 
sessor for all time and stamp themselves indelibly 
upon him. I am persuaded that an observant per- 
son who has familiarized himself with the fashion of 
the past half centurj^ could closely approximate the 
age of a man above thirty-five years of age by in- 
specting his wardrobe and his dressing-table, without 
seeing the man himself. I am speaking now, of 
course, in a general way. What is now deemed ap- 
propriate in dress, manners or ideas in a man of 
sixty was for the most part demanded of him twenty- 
five years ago. At the age of thirty-five it is de- 
manded of a man that he exhibit the best styles of 
manners, clothing and ideas of his times." 

Jones: "Well, Doctor, you are seeking to evade 
the question but I am substantially answered, I 
think. The feminist movement has made great 
strides in the last twenty-five years and you have not 
kept up with it. You are not in sympathy with it. 
You are opposed to it. You are old-fashioned. And 
like the obstinate old man that you are, seek argu- 
ment and study in every way to prove that the world 
is going fast to the Devil or the Demnition Bow- 
wows. You have never marched in a female suffrage 
parade and you never will. If you should ever 
vote for female suffrage you would do it against your 
better judgment. But you have never been a rad- 



78 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

ical. Even in your golden age, you were a conserva- 
tive, as you will admit, and of course now 3'ou are a 
reactionary. Now I'm a conservative myself. You 
have accused me of flippancy and I plead guilty 
whenever the talk is merely desultory or for the pur- 
pose of killing time, but I'm really a rather sober- 
minded Jones person, lacking, however, the timidity 
of age and being perfectly willing to express my own 
opinions in which I am about as far behind the times 
as you are. 

' ' Now I do not give it as my opinion that the open- 
ing up of opportunity to women to engage in em- 
ployments formerl}^ monopolized by men is, upon the 
whole, an unmixed blessing for the nation or the 
race. Yet thousands and tens of thousands of indi- 
vidual women have been raised from very hard liv- 
ing conditions to tolerable or very comfortable living 
conditions — and are leading incomparably happier 
lives than they could have lived if new avenues of 
employment had not been opened up. But this move- 
ment is yet in its infancy and the evils, if any, that 
will attend it are not yet clearly demonstrated in 
experience. I think with you that it will still fur- 
ther cut down the birth rate, but while you assume 
this to be an evil, I'm not persuaded that the check- 
ing of the birth-rate at the present time is an unde- 
sirable thing. I'm not even persuaded that it is not 
a necessary thing. And the checking of the birth- 
rate by rendering marriage unnecessary to subsist- 
ence of a considerable part of our female population 
is to my mind a much more decent and desirable 
method than others with which you are no doubt 
reasonably familiar. When economic conditions re- 
quire a checking of the birth-rate, the check may be 
accomplished, it is true, by wars, pestilence and fam- 
ine, and these or infanticide must be depended upon 



THE SEVENTH MEETING 79 

to effect such check in our crowded population so 
long as women must live in dependence upon men 
for subsistence. If a large body of women may at 
the present time withdraw voluntarily from the 
child-bearing class — and I think they will if made 
financially independent — I am not satisfied that the 
opening up of new occupations to women may not 
only be the best possible thing for millions of women 
individually, but also a blessing to the race as a 
whole." 



THE EIGHTH MEETING 

IN WHICH WE HEAR SOME OPINIONS ON HONESTY 

JONES: "I notice that the rich continue to 
smuggle goods into this port and continue to get 
light sentences, while the criminal law appears gen- 
erally to be enforced with severity against poor male- 
factors of all kinds. I also see that the newspapers 
continue to condemn judges for their very apparent 
discrimination against the poor and their leniency 
to the rich. Occasionally some editor discourses upon 
the turpitude of the offense of smuggling, but not in 
a manner that shows any real abhorrence of the 
crime. Now I don't believe that more than one man 
in fifty would go into the business of smuggling even 
if the danger of discovery and conviction were small, 
but on the other hand, perhaps not more than one 
of the remaining forty-nine would declare dutiable 
articles intended for his own use if he felt it safe not 
to do so. 

"You are our expert psychologist, Doctor, and 
ought to be able to explain the attitude of the peo- 
ple toward this particular crime, though perhaps 
Brown's greater knowledge of respectable dishonesty 
as exemplified in the practice of the law should en- 
able him to speak as an authority. I'd like the ex- 
planation from either of you." 

Brown : ' ' People generally distinguish between of- 
fenses malum in se and offenses merely malum pro- 
hibitum. Injuries to the person or property of oth- 

80 



THE EIGHTH MEETING 81 

ers are felt to be immoral and to show moral turpi- 
tude, whether prohibited or not; while most men 
will, when possible, evade the payment of taxes of 
any kind and not be convicted by their own con- 
sciences of any moral offense. If you want to know 
why men who are honest in their dealings with their 
fellows feel no compunctions of conscience at evad- 
ing the payment of taxes, I think the question may 
be answered by considering your own disposition 
toward tax exaction. Unless you are different from 
most men, you are perfectly willing to escape the 
payment of taxes if you can do so without action 
upon your part. In other words, if the State, county 
or municipal authorities or agents of the federal gov- 
ernment, through incompetence, carelessness or other- 
wise, fail to take the steps necessary to subject your 
property to assessment and levy a tax, you will not 
ask them to do their duty and seek to pay a tax 
that ought, under the law, to be imposed. A first 
reason why you would not seek to charge yourself 
with a proper tax is that other men would consider 
you something of a fool in so doing and would dis- 
trust your motives. You know very well that how- 
ever fine and patriotic such an act may be in theory, 
it is not the common opinion that any duty what- 
ever rests upon a man to render the government any 
voluntary aid in the collection of a tax levied against 
himself. It is of the very essence of the justice of 
any tax that it should be levied by law and operate 
with impartiality so far as possible — and this means 
that an adequate machinery must be created by law 
for accomplishing this purpose. Voluntary contri- 
butions will not in fact be made by a considerable 
number of persons and hence there can be no real 
duty to do more than what the law itself requires 
of you. This reasoning is sufficient to quiet the con- 



82 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

sciences of most men, hence in a practical matter of 
this kind, you should be satisfied with it. Whatever 
may be said, in favor of the theory that you should 
endeavor to contribute your proper proportion to 
the support of the government, nothing whatever can 
be said in favor of the proposition that it is your 
duty to contribute more than your just proportion 
and this is what in the long run you are likely to do 
if you adopt a course that other men will generally 
not adopt and so pay a sum as taxes which you 
would not have been forced to pay. 

"Again, notwithstanding the teaching of religion 
and of our parents and school teachers when we are 
young the sound common sense point of view, sup- 
ported by observation as we grow older, is that a man 
cannot afford in this world to be more honest than 
the law or general usage compels him to be. Every 
ounce of honesty beyond this measure hinders his 
success in the accumulation of property without which 
for most men there can be no independence nor 
worldly happiness. The Doctor may take such in- 
terest in his professional work or Robinson in his 
writing, or even I might in the practice of my pro- 
fession, as to be indifferent to wealth and ownership 
of more proj^erty than what is required to preserve 
life and to continue our work. IMost men are not 
working at occupations that permit such devotion. 
They work because they are compelled to it. Even 
in our professions there are very few men w'ho would 
continue in the work if it offered no material re- 
wards. In business, even, common honesty may or 
may not be the best policy for the individual in a 
particular situation if regard is had only for finan- 
cial success. Scrupulous honesty disqualifies a man 
for commercial pursuits — by scrupulous honest}^ I 
mean strict adherence to the golden rule. No man 



THE EIGHTH MEETING 83 

can afford to be scrupulously honest in this sense so 
long as the doctrine of caveat emptor lies at the 
foundation of the law and is sanctioned by general 
practice. Now why should any man permit his eon- 
science to trouble him when his practice conforms to 
the legal standards and commercial usage? Why 
may not he say when he enters upon commercial life 
— 'This is a game to be played under certain rules 
laid down by the law. Aside from legal restrictions 
or rules, there are, then, no enforcible regulations, 
hence it is understood by all in the game that liberty 
is given to employ every artifice and ingenuity to 
win, which is not prohibited. The law can always 
be changed by the people if found not sufficiently re- 
strictive to ensure such fairness of dealing as indi- 
vidual and public good require.' " 

Jones: "Do you mean to say that no man can be 
scrupulously honest and be successful in trade?" 

Brown: "No — but I mean to say that a man of 
only average ability and aptitude for the business 
will ordinarily fail if he be scrupulously honest." 

Smith: "Would you teach this belief of yours in 
the schools?" 

Brown: "Not in form at least, but I would at all 
stages in the education of youth enforce the idea that 
no one can safely rely upon or can expect scrupulous 
honesty of another, and that he should depend upon 
himself for success." 

Jones: "In other words, you wouldn't teach him 
that he ought not to be scrupulously honest, but you 
would impress him with the folly of it." 

Brown: "Not even so far as that, Mr. Jones. I 
would impress him with the folly of depending upon 
or relying upon scrupulous honesty in another. This 
is only fair to youth and failure to go as far is to send 
him forth in the world unarmed for its battles. If 



84 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

he is made to understand what is before him, and still 
believes that he can be scrupulously honest and suc- 
ceed, let him go to it. If he has extraordinary nat- 
ural capacity or extraordinary industry-, he may pos- 
sibly succeed." 

Jones: "Then only extraordinary natural capac- 
ity or extraordinary application, or both, will ^ve 
the man of scrupulous honesty any chance in this 
wicked world, and it is clear that the man of ordinary 
capacity cannot afford to be scrupulously honest. It 
may be a sound doctrine, but it sounds unlovely and 
is certainly unchristian." 

Brown: "It may be unchristian, but you must not 
overlook the fact that this is not a Christian nation 
and that our laws and customs are not Christian laws 
and customs. 

' ' I am speaking of the proper education for a youth 
who must live in a non-Christian country among non- 
Christian people. The teachings of Christ were not 
intended for a world that was to continue for 1900 
years, nor were they so understood by the apostles 
or early Christians. As a system of theology the 
Christian religion has continued to this day, but the 
distinctively Christian rules of conduct were quickly 
abandoned as soon as it was perceived that the world 
was not promptly coming to an end. 

"Do good to them that despitefully use you. If a 
man take thy coat, give him thy cloak also. If he 
smite thee on one cheek, turn the other. These were 
never accepted in good faith except by very early 
Christians. Neither the Catholic Church nor any of 
the Protestant churches have ever failed to show their 
disbelief in the soundness of these teachings, and, in- 
deed, their contempt for the same, except perhaps in 
the instance of some few minor (and in the common 
judgment foolish) unorthodox groups such as the 



THE EIGHTH MEETING 85 

Quakers. Although their religion teaches that the ob- 
servance of these rules is essential to the salvation of 
their immortal souls, they don't believe it. They 
don't even believe in the immortality of the soul." 

Jones: ''You are not a Christian, I take it, and 
don't believe in giving the young religious instruc- 
tion." 

Brown : "I believe in not teaching obviously false 
doctrines and believe in teaching the truth, but above 
all I believe in teaching youth to seek the truth. I 
don't believe in teaching doctrines that nobody be- 
lieves in. It isn't necessary to teach children that the 
distinctive Christian morality furnishes no practical 
rules for life. They know better from the time they 
leave the cradle. No amount of teaching by parents 
or priests has ever converted one child in a thousand 
to a belief in the wisdom of the precepts of Christ that 
I have quoted, yet such is the effect upon our impres- 
sionable youth of teaching by priests and educators 
that most of us feel that we are not wholly good when 
we violate them. 

"Now this I regard as an unmixed evil. Whenever 
you make a law that cannot be observed by reasonable 
people; whenever you lay down a moral doctrine or 
precept for conduct that nobody can or will comply 
with — you are making the world worse instead of 
better. Any man who deliberately does an act which 
he helieves to be wrong is harmed although the act be 
in fact innocuous, or perhaps beneficial and altogether 
good and commendable. If a man takes a dollar that 
he believes belongs to another, he becomes a thief al- 
though it turn out that the dollar was really his own. 
So any man who does any act that he believes to be 
wrong is morally damaged, though there be no other 
harm done. We should be careful therefore not to 
teach that acts are wrong which all men in our state 



86 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

of civilization will be practically compelled to do in 
order to live." 

Jones : ' ' Then you are for lowering our present 
standard of morality?" 

Brown: "I don't consider that a standard is low- 
ered in any fair sense when hypocrisy is dropped and 
it conforms to the general opinion of what is justi- 
fiable in the times in which we live. We will not 
cease to condemn murder, theft, arson or bearing false 
witness when we teach that it is justifiable and right- 
eous for a man to act in self-defense to the point of 
killing his enemy if necessary to save his own life, and 
making the punishment fit the crime, where the injury 
is of less consequence. I insist that the legal standard 
is the only one by which a man's conduct can prop- 
erly be judged by others or liimself, and if a man shall 
conform to the law he will be sufficiently good for this 
world, and to be better than that is to be too good for 
this world. 

"When it is considered that any interference with 
a man's health, liberty or property is prohibited by 
law and that all forms of misrepresentation and de- 
ceit are condemned by the law where they work injury, 
and that in all trust relations the utmost good faith 
and fidelity to that trust are exacted, it would seem 
that one conforming to such laws needs not be troubled 
in his conscience because he insists that others shall 
do likewise. He need not turn the other cheek. It 
is not manly, decent, nor the act of a good citizen to 
turn the other cheek. It may be prudent to run away, 
but it is assinine to remain for the purpose of turning 
the other cheek. 

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto 
you. Sound sense or not according to the interpreta- 
tion put upon it. As ordinarily interpreted it is 
foolish and harmful advice. But if it could be taken 



THE EIGHTH MEETING 87 

to mean that you should accord to others freely the 
right to treat you as you treat them, it is unobjection- 
able, for no man has any right to insist that others 
shall be bound by more strict rules than himself in 
like circumstances." 

Jones : ' ' IMr. Brown, while much that you say con- 
cerning the conditions of business success is no doubt 
true, the whole effect of your discourse is depressing 
and discouraging and I don't know of anything that 
would be more likely to convert a band of hopeful 
young men into a lot of cynical damned rascals than 
to have you for their instructor in morals and ad- 
visor upon conduct at an impressionable age. I'm 
sorry that I can 't disagree with you in toto as to what 
is the generally accepted code of business morality 
amongst business men. But what is that code as you 
expound it? Simply this: the law contains com- 
plete definition of right and wrong in business trans- 
actions. If a man's conscience troubles him respect- 
ing his conduct where the law does not condemn it, his 
conscience is necessarily at fault and he not only im- 
perils his business career by regarding it, but is acting 
upon a false standard of morals. Now it may be that 
a scrupulously honest man is at a disadvantage when 
dealing with a body of business men who accept and 
act upon your views, but you go to the length of as- 
serting that it is right for business men generally to 
look at the law alone for the test of the righteousness 
of their transactions. You discard conscience entirely 
and a man's personal convictions, and lay it down 
that no man need be, and no wise man will be, any 
better than the law as promulgated by legislative high 
priests educated in the school that has produced you. 
That for a man to have a conscience which requires 
anything finer than this is mistake for him and the 
result of pernicious teaching in early youth of the 



88 THE PENNY ANTE CLUB 

golden rule and other impracticable and therefore 
wicked doctrines. 

' ' What warrant have you for saying that the stand- 
ard of business morality must always remain w^here 
it now is ? You suggest that as the public demands a 
more exacting standard the public voice will find its 
expression in the law. But what hope is there that 
there will ever be any public demand for improvement 
if youth be not taught that a higher standard is de- 
sirable and may become practicable? 

* ' Is it true that the golden rule requires a course of 
conduct impossible to man in a social state? Would 
the human race perish if the golden rule were adopted 
and acted upon by all men? You and philosophers 
of your school answer that trade — exchange — neces- 
sarily involves a loss to one of the parties to it and 
cannot be beneficial to both. The truth, of course, is 
that one man's loss is not necessarily another man's 
gain and that one man's gain is not necessarily an- 
other man's loss. When the shoemaker makes the 
doctor a new pair of shoes and in return the doctor 
attends and cures the shoemaker's sick child, a good 
man's feet are better protected from flints and from 
the wet, and his health is preserved to the great ad- 
vantage of the whole community ; while the shoemaker 
has restored to him what is of greater value to him 
than all of the shoes in the world. 

"You will not deny that if all men were to observe 
the golden rule, the plow would still turn the soil and 
ships would still plow the oceans carrying the produce 
of one land to another. And you wull further admit 
that labor would receive a just recompense and the 
wealth of the world be equitably distributed amongst 
its inhabitants. 

"I say that the golden rule prescribes the only prac- 
ticable rule for a social state. Civilization is a failure 



THE EIGHTH MEETING 89 

just in-so-far as the rule is departed from, and chil- 
dren should be taught this fundamental truth and led 
to see that it is a fundamental condition of right liv- 
ing. Nor will a young man who is fully persuaded of 
this be a mollycoddle or impracticable fool. He will 
have a proper sense of justice. He will not turn the 
other cheek. He will not give his cloak also. In my 
opinion there is nothing impracticable to-day in busi- 
ness in doing unto others what you would have them 
do unto you. I grant you that the man who wants to 
swindle his neighbors must reject the golden rule, but 
it doesn't follow that the man who accepts the golden 
rule will submit to be swindled or is any more likely 
to be swindled than the man who thinks honesty in 
man is non-existent or impracticable." 

Smith: "I call your attention, gentlemen, to the 
hour of the night, — long past time to adjourn." 



THE END 



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